


Brothers in Arms

by ArtyThrip



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Altmer - Freeform, Argonian - Freeform, Dark Brotherhood - Freeform, Dunmer - Freeform, Gen, Mages Guild, Orc, main quest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtyThrip/pseuds/ArtyThrip
Summary: Idari Mortha did not want to be the Hero of Kvatch, and now she has a useless Argonian beggar following her around. The faster she can get this over with, the better.Novelisation of Oblivion involving the main quest, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Mages Guild, among others.





	1. Accidents Happen

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of the story of the same name from fanfiction.net.
> 
> It has been more than five years since I wrote this story, and I am currently in the process of rewriting it completely. Please feel free to leave a comment as I am still open to suggestions, despite the fact that the story is more or less completed.
> 
> I hope that it comes to mean as much to you as it does to me.

> "Each event is preceded by Prophecy. But without the hero, there is no Event."  
>  \- Zurin Arctus, the Underking

### Chapter 1 - Accidents Happen

In the city of Bruma, high on the Jerall Mountains near the border with Skyrim, the long-term presence of an Argonian had always been a source of confusion. The Argonian body was designed for swimming in far warmer climes, and so stored little in the way of body fat, and as a result, few Argonians chose to stray this far north and even fewer decided to make the town their long-term residence.

This particular Argonian had raised even more questions since he had arrived here a little over a month previously. His employment in the household of the wealthy Bosmer Baenlin had raised more than a few eyebrows, though it was preferable to finding his frozen corpse in a snow drift early on a winter's morning. As it stood, the people of Bruma asked few questions about the Argonian or his providence, though there had previously been some talk of his wreaking havoc within the local Mages' Guild chapter with spells gone awry.

Before entering into Baenlin's employ, the Argonian had enjoyed some notoriety, first as a pirate, and then as a wandering bard before meeting with the last in a string of serious misfortunes that had caused him to end up penniless and alone on the frozen streets of the northern city. Baenlin, a supposedly shrewd businessman, was the first to take advantage of the beggar's poor luck and offered him a roof over his head in exchange for performing out a few odd jobs that his manservant Gromm could not fit into his daily routine. At the time, being housed in a frosty cellar had been preferable to facing the elements, however, the offer had soon lost its lustre once the Argonian had realised he would never earn enough septims to leave this town, even with several years of pay in his pocket.

The stories he had once told in the inns he frequented on his travels spoke of adventures he had had before reaching the city, though whether they were truthful or greatly embellished remained unclear. After being forced from the Serpent's Wake, the ship on which he had found passage to Cyrodiil, by the other crew members for being 'bad luck', he had been taken in by the author Quill-Weave for a short time before setting off alone. During his time as a bard, the Argonian had travelled from town to town and eventually to Bruma to make his fortune, only to be robbed while staying in Olav's Tap and Tack, by what he suspected was a member of the Thieves Guild who saw him as an easy target.

Then penniless, the Argonian was forced to take up begging and slept inside the Chapel of Talos to shield himself from the cold until he was forcibly removed from his small sanctuary by a primate who, it seemed, had not studied the section of his faith that called for acts of charity. That night he had almost frozen to death.

He had been taken in by the Bruma Guild of Mages for a short time, cared for by the Imperial alchemist Selena Orania and the intensely annoying Breton Jeanne Frasoric. While he was not completely mundane, his control of this power was tenuous at best and he struggled to wrap his tongue around the complex incantations. The crisis point came when he started blowing holes in the roof, being attacked by his own summoned daedra and very nearly managed to cost Jeanne a finger, though other members of the guild had found this misadventure among the most creative pranks that they had never dared try and had thanked him for the priceless inspiration.

Two days later he was taken in by Baenlin following Jeanne's recommendation, along with the threat that otherwise he would be forced to live on the streets again.

The Argonian despised his position with the Bosmer. If he had had anywhere else to go, he would have left in an instant. He sometimes wished that Baenlin would meet his end so that he could be free of this terrible predicament. People around him often met with dreadful accidents, however at this rate he was bound to be stuck in this position for some time. Upon his reflection, that in itself was probably misfortune enough to follow the general pattern of his time in Cyrodiil thus far.

Turner - who had been named by a slightly tipsy Nord woman but seemed to be called all manner of names by people who assumed that it was short for something like Turns-A-Corner or Turner-of-Wheels or Turner-Corner - could feel the storms blowing in from the Jerall Mountains, and pulled the blanket more tightly around his chin in some vain attempt to shield himself from the bitter cold of the mountains. He was not a slave as he assumed his parents had been, but he seemed to be treated as one. In reality, he was little better than an indentured servant. He shivered violently and cursed everybody who had ever short-changed or robbed him for not leaving him with enough money to at least buy some warmer clothes now that he really needed to.

Five additional blankets pilfered from Baenlin's personal supply later and the dozing Argonian was woken by the sound of scraping against the ice-covered trapdoor that opened onto the street above. It was a harsh and unusual sound and filled him with confusion, firstly because the trapdoor was frozen solid at this time of year, and secondly, because anybody who wished to enter the house legitimately would have used the front door as Baenlin seldom saw fit to lock it.

Quickly alert, he bundled the blankets under the low wooden bed and hid behind the wine racks that Baenlin used so very rarely. Hopefully, the intruder would not use any kind of detect life enchantment and was not particularly observant.

His mind racing, he remembered a Black Horse Courier he had read perhaps a week earlier detailing the murder of a pirate captain aboard his ship the Marie Elena, and how the culprit had escaped retribution despite the numerous witnesses. It had obviously been the work of some heinously skilled assassin, and for a moment the Argonian feared that they might have been sent after him this time.

After what sounded like a rush of flames, the trapdoor swung upwards and a dark figure descended through the hatch. They were silhouetted in black against the glistening snow outside, their face was hidden from view by their dark hood. The stranger turned and pulled the hatch closed, and their eyes then fixed on the door to the main house, completely missing the cowering Argonian in the corner behind the wine rack.

As the intruder passed him, Turner observed the fact that they were female, some form of mer - too short to be an Imperial or Nord, and too tall to be a Breton, with no tail, fur or scales - and obviously here for some kind of illegal business due to the dagger at her hip and longsword at her back. She was clad from head to toe in black leather, and despite the large weapons, she moved silently and gracefully.

He hid himself with an invisibility spell. It was the only spell that he had found himself adept at during his short time living with the mages, and came to him as easily as pulling on a glove, but he had never expected that he would have a use for it.

Despite every fibre of his body telling him not to, he decided to follow her. He could not sneak silently and questioned whether his luck would hold to allow him to stalk this mysterious woman unnoticed. Turner half expected Gromm to come charging around the corner to see what the noise was about while wielding his huge axe and split the unfortunate Argonian clean in half.

The intruder cursed under her breath when she reached the top of the stairs and Turner stepped a little too heavily on the creaky floorboard halfway up. She snapped around, but looked straight through him and merely rounded the corner into Gromm’s bedroom.

The fact that the Nord was allowed to sleep in the house while he was forced into the cellar was just another factor that made him hate his situation. Baenlin told him that it was because Gromm had been with him for a decade and was practically a member of the family, but it always seemed to be some new way to make his other servant suffer for the terms of his employment. The Bosmer took great pleasure in reminding him that if he was truly unhappy, he was welcome to return to the streets.

Turner glanced over the railing and began to wonder exactly what the intruder might want in Gromm's room. Hopefully, he thought, to kill the detestable Nord before it's too late.

On the ground floor, Baenlin reclined in a wooden chair beneath a stuffed Minotaur head. He proclaimed loudly to his guests that it was a trophy from his younger more active days, but Turner highly doubted that his master had ever been a skilled enough hunter to fell a minotaur. He probably just bought from a market in Valenwood for around 200 gold.

Nearby, Gromm sat faithfully as always, more relaxed than usual but still alert to anything that might threaten his precious master. He heard Baenlin mutter something about the storms in the mountains making the house creak again and inwardly praised his luck. Turner had always wondered where a useless layabout like Baenlin had ever found enough money to retire, even though he knew that in his younger days the Wood Elf had run a string of successful businesses that he had refused to sign over to his nephew since he had begun his retirement. He just didn’t seem anything like a shrewd businessman nowadays, wasting his money on wine he never drank, and telling his servants that he did not have enough money to pay their wages.

Following the armour-clad and hooded individual into Gromm's room achieved nothing, save for his senses being assaulted by the disgusting smell of unwashed Nord. Turner was initially baffled that the intruder had disappeared, however he soon realised that she could have ducked into the crawlspace adjacent to the bedroom. The Argonian had once been forced to sleep in there when the winter was so cold that the cellar flagstones froze, but it was so small and Gromm snored so loudly that he lay awake with his knees pressed uncomfortably into his chest all night instead of resting.

He didn't dare press his ear to the door to see what she was doing, too concerned that she would open it and he would fall on top of her. No amount of invisibility could prevent her detecting him then. Instead he sunk down onto Gromm's bed with his head in his hands, waiting for her to emerge. What felt like hours ticked by as he renewed his invisibility spell and felt his eyelids growing heavier, fighting against the urge to fall asleep.

He must have dozed off, because Turner awoke with a start after what had seemed to him to be only a few seconds. A loud crashing sound shook the house to its rafters and there was a sickening crunch. In his surprise, the Argonian almost forgot to renew his invisibility spell again before the door to the crawlspace slid open and the stranger stalked out. She didn't appear to spot him, but he felt his heart skip when she looked through him once again.

He could hear Gromm's anguished shouting on the floor below and it dawned on him that the Nord had not been the target of the stranger after all. Turner wondered for a second why Gromm would be so upset at something falling, but he was too busy holding his breath to follow his thoughts through.

The intruder began to sneak out of the room and back towards the stairs. Turner rose awkwardly from his position on the bed and followed her. On the balcony he glanced down to see what the commotion was about downstairs. At first glance it seemed as if the stuffed minotaur head had finally fallen from the wall and crashed to the floor. He had always felt nervous cleaning around the area beneath it because its fixing to the wall seemed so flimsy, and yet it had always remained in its place.

But underneath the minotaur head a pool of blood was forming and Turner barely managed to contain the urge to vomit. A small blue suede shoe on the end of a small broken limb protruded from beneath the heavy decoration. It seemed as though fate had finally caught up with old Baenlin and he had been crushed to death by the ugly thing. The perfect accident. Or so it appeared from the outside.

The Nord manservant stood over the wreckage with his axe drawn, a terrifying expression of anguish on his face. Turner realised suddenly that he was probably Gromm's first suspect in the event of foul play. He had never made a secret of his disdain for his situation and his employer, and he knew that he had commented on the instability of the ornament's fixings more than once. While he was shocked and somewhat saddened by Baenlin's death, the Argonian knew that he would have to leave this house immediately if he valued his life. Turner decided that for want of a better plan, following the intruder out through the cellar trapdoor was probably his best chance of escape.

Turner tiptoed after the mer down the stairs and into the cellar. He hoped that Gromm was too blinded by his grief to hear the squeaking of his feet on the stairs. He had always wondered why rich old Baenlin had never invested in a more sturdy set of stairs, but he supposed that it was his usual mixture of laziness and frugality. He prayed to any gods that would listen that Gromm would fail to notice him attempting to sneak between the stairs and the cellar door that he had left slightly ajar. His invisibility spell was beginning to fade, and he knew that he was too stressed to even attempt to renew it. The Argonian prayed with every fibre of his being, even though current events seemed as though the gods had abandoned Cyrodiil right now.

Gates to Oblivion had opened up everywhere recently, and the daedra from inside had not long destroyed the city of Kvatch before they had been saved by a person that the people were calling the 'Hero of Kvatch'. From what he had heard, they were a Dunmer but the only thing people seemed to be commenting on was the fact that they had a bad attitude and a sharp tongue. Apparently they'd also been there when the Emperor was murdered trying to escape the Imperial City. Turner supposed that it was possible they might well have wielded the blade that killed him if the rumours about them were at all true.

The Argonian followed the intruder out of the cellar and into the freezing streets of Bruma. He was wearing nothing more than sack cloth rags and cursed himself for not having the sense of mind to grab one of the bundle of blankets from beneath his bed. However, now that he had effectively incriminated himself in the murder by fleeing the scene, he decided against the idea of climbing back into the cellar to find something warmer.

The mer pulled a plain black cloak from somewhere within her armour and slung it around her shoulders for warmth. She drew it tightly around her and he saw the shimmer of magic wash over her as she cast a heating spell under her breath. Turner wished that he was able to cast a similar spell as the frigid wind whipped through his unsuitable clothing, but he knew that with his magical ability, he would sooner set himself on fire than actually warm himself up.

The fresh snow crunched under his bare feet as he trailed after the stranger through the back streets of Bruma. The gods seemed to have other plans, though, as he slipped on a patch of icy ground and skidded onto the end of the cloak worn by the murderer. In an instant, he felt his back impact the wall and a dagger dig sharply into his abdomen while fierce red eyes burned into his skull from beneath the black hood. All he could do was swallow, curse and pray that he would make it out of this encounter alive, even though luck seldom chose to favour him.

"Watch where you're going, fool!" she snapped. Turner recognised her accent from his travels and knew that she had spent a significant amount of time on the east coast of Vvardenfell. She was a Dunmer and was very young for her race, perhaps in her early twenties, but he had trouble making out any other details other than the knife near his gut.

"I saw you in my master's house," he said in his panic. He had decided, in his wisdom, that it was either speak now or die in regret.

"Your master?" she spat. She pulled the end of her cloak from beneath his feet and glared at him. "And who might your master be, pondscum?"

Turner regretted having chosen to speak. "The Bosmer, Baenlin," he stuttered, watching the Dunmer's expression briefly change from anger to shock and back again.

She smirked, raising her dagger to strike him dead. "You would have been better off confessing to the crime of killing your master than admitting to seeing me inside. When I'm done with you there won't be enough pieces for a proper burial anyway."

"By the Nine!" a voice quivered from behind the Dunmer. She didn't flinch, but Turner was startled. "Guards! Murder! Murd-argh!" The voice had once belonged to a beggar from the streets of Bruma, an annoying Imperial who Turner had never wanted to know and now never would. He had hit the nosey man with a rather powerful frost spell that he had never managed to perfect and killed him instantly. He was dead before his body slumped to the ground.

"Great," the Dunmer sighed angrily. "Just what I need!" Then she turned back to the Argonian she still held to the wall and growled: "Do exactly as I say. If you don't then I will kill you, cut your body into small pieces, and then burn the pieces, understand?"

Turner nodded as she sheathed her blade and took him by the wrist to lead him through the streets and out of the gate. He was too lost in his thoughts to pay attention to much of the journey. He had killed someone, albeit unintentionally. He had really killed an innocent person. He was not a killer and he never would be, but all he could see in his head was the image of the body crumpling. It had all happened so fast that he couldn't even remember saying the words to the spell, let alone casting it.

The Dunmer dragged him through the city gates and pointed at a paint horse that stood in the stables. It was already saddled, suggesting that its owner had arrived recently or was planning to leave presently. "Get on it, now!" she ordered him, and the tone of her voice showed how little she planned to be meddled with.

"But that's stealing!" he objected before he realised that he probably ought not to have questioned her orders if he enjoyed his life. Of course, as an afterthought his mind added unhelpfully: you've just murdered someone and now you've got qualms about stealing a horse, what kind of screwed up fugitive are you?

She rounded on him furiously and her dagger was in her hand in an instant. "Get on the horse. Now," she repeated through gritted teeth. "For Sithis' sake, it's my horse."

He highly doubted that the horse was really hers, but nevertheless, he climbed onto it, scrabbling about to get his feet into the stirrups and his leg over the horse’s back. He watched the Dunmer storm into the stables and grabbed hold of the nearest horse, leading the animal away towards the gate and mounting it with ease without a saddle. An Imperial man ran out of the small shack next to the paddock and began yelling at her about the consequences of stealing his horses and how he was going to call the guards on them.

In a flash of silver the man's head was severed from his shoulders and flung half way across the paddock. His body gurgled blood as he fell, and Turner's heart skipped a beat as he watched. The sight of blood made him feel queasy and he gripped the reins tighter hoping that they would keep him on the horse if he fainted. She was galloping away already, her sword still stained with blood, and the Argonian spurred his horse after her.

After a full day of riding Turner felt brave enough to ask her where they were heading. The answer was blunt: "Cheydinhal." And the malice in her voice was unmistakable, though this time she didn’t seem to have the inclination to fix him in another death-like glare.

An hour had passed before she decided to speak again. "You may not be a Brother, but your murder back there - however sloppy - will have garnered the attention of my superiors and very soon they'll be paying you a little visit in order to... welcome you to the family." She chuckled and the Argonian began to fear that he might have been taken from Bruma by a madwoman. "Though your kind is pretty much useless as anything except slaves, I suppose that we should get to know each other before we become... related. So, I guess I should ask you your name, lizard, unless you plan to refuse the generous offer and be killed."

About a hundred false names must have run through the Argonian's head in the seconds that followed before he decided that honesty might well be the best policy when dealing with a woman who would certainly make him pay for lying to her. "My name is Turner," he murmured, trying to avoid meeting her eyes.

"That's not an Argonian name..." the Dunmer mused to herself.

"Well if I had an Argonian name - or even a Black Marsh name - I would tell it to you and laugh as you failed to pronounce it," Turner snapped back before he could stop himself. "Unfortunately for me, I don't, so I can't."

"A pathetic name for a pathetic lizard then," she smiled, unperturbed by his sudden bout of attitude. "Nice to see a little flare in there, though. Maybe you'll get somewhere if you don't manage to get yourself slaughtered by wild beasts before we arrive. Throughout Cyrodiil people know me by many names, but my Brothers and Sisters know me as Idari Mortha, and you may call me by that name once you become my Brother. Unfortunately for you, though, my Brothers and Sisters do not take kindly to any sort of failure, so you shall have to be extra diligent if you wish to remain breathing with most of your blood inside your body."


	2. A Knife in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still reeling from the events in Bruma, Idari and Turner are faced with offers that they cannot refuse

### Chapter 2 - A Knife in the Dark

Any patrolling guardsman on the road between Cheydinhal and Bruma would have been struck by the oddity of the mismatched pair riding towards them. The Argonian looked weary and terrified, and his knuckles were bloody from obvious fighting. His tattered clothes suggested that he had left in a hurry without preparation, and there were gashes on his arms as though he had been attacked by a wild animal. The other rider was smaller and dressed entirely in black leather armour with a hood pulled low over their face. They exuded an aura of savagery that could turn away even the most curious of onlooker's eye. Anybody brave enough to pay attention to them might have noticed the grey-blue tinted skin of their face or seen the glint of their red eyes beneath their hood, but otherwise, their Dunmeri heritage was not immediately obvious. Across their back was a silver shortsword decorated with a faint smear of blood from recent fighting that had yet to be tended to. The pair rode in tense silence, exchanging neither words nor glances as they travelled.

Idari Mortha kicked her stolen horse roughly, impatient to reach a pace that it was unable to keep. She had given her own horse to the Argonian, but both animals were moving at a similar speed and now she wished that she had stolen them both faster animals.

In her home of Vvardenfell horses were seldom used as a mode of transport. People got around using a silt strider or a boat or even the Guild Guide between the Mages Guild guildhalls. In Cyrodiil they only had horses, not even an escort for walkers or a caravan for merchants. Horses, if stolen, were cheaper, but silt striders were significantly more convenient for travelling directly between major towns. Cyrodiil was still a strange land for her, and its people were even stranger and sickeningly welcoming.

She thought back to her old life in Sadrith Mora, the council seat of House Telvanni, and to the family that she had left behind. Her father was a low-ranked Telvanni sorcerer who was slowly losing his mind with grief after the death of his eldest son and the disappearance of his younger son. Now that his only daughter had run away too, he was sure to have lost it completely.

Idari was adamant that she would rather have run than been married off to a Telvanni nobleman four times her age by her socially climbing mother. With no more sons and a disgraced family name, there was nothing else that could be done to preserve their position in the house.

Her new life in Cyrodiil had so far been promising. Following a small mishap in the Imperial Prison that ended with the Emperor shoving an expensive golden amulet into her hands before being struck down by an assassin, she had joined the Dark Brotherhood. She'd completed three contracts for them, but things had been going well up to that point. She was good at killing people and being paid to do it meant that she was able to build an independent life for herself, free of the restrictive politics of Vvardenfell.  
But now things seemed to be going sour.

In her pocket the Amulet of Kings reminded her of her duty to Tamriel, to 'close shut the jaws of Oblivion' as Uriel Septim had told her and to find his other son. So far she'd only put this duty off. She had considered trying to fence the amulet, but it was too recognisable and at least one of the Emperor's Blades had seen her with it after his death. She even thought about wearing it briefly, but the clasp must have been broken because she had been unable to fasten it around her neck.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she heard the sound of fighting. On one side of the road, the Argonian Turner was grappling with a large wolf, swinging wildly at it with his bare fists. She watched him fight, wondering whether she would have to finish off the wolf after he'd been killed and questioning her decision to keep him alive for the time being. He wasn't a Dark Brother yet so technically she could still kill him if she wanted to and there would be no consequences.

She wasn't scared of the Wrath of Sithis. She was sure she could destroy it easily. However, Idari had stopped herself from killing him in Bruma and it seemed to her a waste to let him die now.

A wet thud and whimper regained her attention. Turner discarded the bloody rock in his hand and edged around the body of the wolf which now bore a large head wound. He looked drained from the fight and fresh blood covered the sleeve of his shirt from where the animal had made a deep gash on his upper arm. Looking at the cut he clutched his head and staggered a little, struggling to pull himself back onto his horse with one arm.

"You're squeamish," the Dunmer grinned. She chuckled at the irony. A squeamish would-be assassin.

"No..." Turner replied weakly. His lie obvious. "I... lost some blood and... hit my head." He groaned, and Idari half expected him to vomit.

"Heal yourself, then," Idari said bluntly.

The Argonian closed his eyes and rubbed a temple gently. "Can't," he said with a considerable amount of effort. "Don't have enough magicka and don't have any potions. Can't pronounce the words right for spells so they all go wrong anyway..."

Idari sighed and hit him with a weak convalescence spell. While she was not gifted with restoration, it was her view that anybody who could not at least heal minor wounds with magic was as good as useless. Immediately the wound to his arm began to knit itself back together, the gash becoming a thin scar on his scaly skin. "Thank you," he whispered sincerely. "You didn't have to do that..."

"Please try not to remind me." She saw the relief on his face fade. "Perhaps you should get some sleep?"

His reptilian eyes widened slightly. "But you said that your family would come for me when I slept... Don't you want to be a bit closer to Cheydinhal for that?" She knew that he had kept himself awake for at least two days for fear of what would happen if he closed his eyes.

Idari smiled at his ignorance. "My Speaker recruits every member of the Brotherhood in Cyrodiil. I'm sure he makes many unnecessary trips across the countryside to initiate losers like you. He's found many outcasts and given them a family and a home."

"I've never had a family," he said softly. "My parents were slaves in Morrowind and sent me away so that I could be free. I don't know what happened to them."

For the first time since they had met, the Dunmer was surprised by him. "Slaves don't have children!" she exclaimed. "How could -?" She struggled to regain her composure, fingers tightening in her horse's mane.

Turner answered her before the question had even formed on her lips. "I have no idea. I don't know anything about them except that I ended up here.” He paused for a minute, weighing his words. “You're a Telvanni, aren't you?"

Her red eyes narrowed. "What makes you think that?" she spat. She felt herself shaking with anger. He had no business inquiring about her family.

"Your reaction to slavery," he said simply. "Telvannis are the staunchest defenders of slavery in Morrowind and they're really racist about outlanders, even other Dunmer, so I figured it out really... Only Dark Elves from Morrowind hate Argonians so much that they vocalise it. The rest can just about tolerate us. My parents really didn't send me away from them to end up being a murderer. I expect they'd be horrified to find out how badly things have gone for me..."

"Spare me the reminiscence. I didn't bring you with me so that you could tell me some pathetic story about your pathetic existence," Idari snapped at him. "You should go to sleep and fulfil your dark destiny." She would not give him the satisfaction of admitting that he was right. The Mortha family had not owned any slaves personally but she supported the practice wholeheartedly. When she had first arrived in Cyrodiil it had surprised her how different the attitudes towards the beast races were. To prevent drawing attention to herself, she had quickly learned to play along, internalising the majority of her upbringing.

The Argonian nodded as if finally coming to terms with his fate. For a moment Idari considered that it might have been more merciful to have left him in Bruma to freeze to death or rot in the prison there for Baenlin's horrific accident. She dismissed the pang of mercy as soon as it crossed her mind. Mercy was a weakness that she could not afford. There were capable Argonian assassins within her sanctuary; perhaps this one would yet surprise her.

They found a bandit camp only a short distance from the road and Idari set about clearing out the occupants. Turner flinched with each slash of her shortsword and stared in wide-eyed horror as she killed three unsuspecting bandits with gory efficiency. Once the bandits were dead, Idari ordered the hapless Argonian to drag the bodies away from the camp. She watched him move the corpses, obviously struggling with the urge to vomit.

The Dunmer stared deep into the flames of the dying campfire while she waited, watching them crackle and dance, and cast a weak fireball to stoke it back to life. When Turner returned she finally took note of his nauseated expression and bade him sleep in one of the canvas tents surrounding the fire. She watched over him as he curled up on a bedroll and pretended to fall asleep, still fighting against his desires to run away and hide. Idari didn't know that her Speaker would actually show up for the lizard and doubted her decision to stay her hand. She considered slitting his throat and returning to the sanctuary before dismissing the idea.

When Turner awoke the sky was black and the only light in the camp was the pale glow of Masser and Secunda. The fire had gone out and a cold breeze was blowing in from the Jerall Mountains, sending shivers down the Argonian's spine. He rose to his feet and chanced a look out of the tent to see if anything had happened yet. He saw nothing. The Dunmer, he assumed, had taken off with anything of value. Idari Mortha probably wasn't even her real name.

In his confusion, he failed to notice the sound of faint footsteps behind his tent. A robed man appeared behind Turner as the chameleon enchantment he wore seemed to fail.  
"Well done, Mortha, you found me," the man said. His voice dripped with sarcasm and thinly veiled dislike.

Idari stood from behind the tent, smirking beneath her hood. Her teeth glowed in the moonlight. "You always use chameleon enchantments," she grinned. "Dispel and detect life are simple enough countermeasures. Are you here to initiate him?"

"Initiate him?" replied the man. "It was an accident, not a murder."

The Dunmer frowned, her arms folded. "So why are you here?" she demanded.

"To speak with you... and to clear up a loose end." Turner saw the glint of a dagger in his hand and stepped back in fear.

Idari batted the man's hand away telekinetically. "No. You are not going to kill him when I brought him all the way here!" She seemed more angered by the inconvenience to her than by the Argonian's impending death.

Turner shrank back into the tent while frantically trying to find a way to escape. He was unarmed, and the pair of assassins seemed far more proficient at magic than him. The robed man sounded like he was native to Cyrodiil and would know the terrain, and his trusty invisibility would not protect him against a detect life spell.

"An intriguing concept..." the man replied. "Just why did you bring him all the way here? He's the only witness to your otherwise perfect crime. You should have dealt with him on the spot." When Idari made no reply to man chuckled darkly. "It's your Morag Tong background, isn't it? You don't kill witnesses unless they attempt to report you. That's why they are legal and we're not. We cannot afford loose ends, you've told him too much already."

"Then initiate him," she told the man tersely. Turner was amazed at the level tone she managed to maintain in the presence of this man. He could barely even think, let alone speak. "The Brotherhood is experiencing dark times," she continued. "Brothers and Sisters are being killed..."

"Brothers and Sisters are always killed!" the man interrupted. "It's an occupational hazard."

"Well they aren't usually murdered," Idari replied finally. She seemed determined to have the last word on the subject. The Argonian, who was still cowering at the back of the tent, was not surprised to learn for certain that the pair were members of the infamous Dark Brotherhood. He knew the man had every intention of ending his life and hoped that Idari was persuasive enough to allow him to keep his head. After the way that they had met, it shocked him that she was arguing in his favour. It wasn't particularly comforting, but he found it allowed him to stop himself from shaking with fear for a few moments.

There was silence for a long time, which was only broken by the mysterious man's question: "How did you know of this?"

"People in the sanctuary have noticed the unusually high death toll recently. There has been some talk of people being killed on contracts. Ocheeva is worried about an assassin among assassins, and yet the Night Mother hasn't spoken, has she?"

"The Night Mother will have her reasons."

"Initiate the Argonian," Idari said. "You know that he isn't the traitor, and he might prove useful... Though having seen him fight, I doubt that. Either way, having an extra pair of hands that you know to be innocent, even for one contract, is surely better than stabbing completely in the dark."

The Imperial sheathed his dagger after some consideration. "Then I must speak with you first," he said. "I came here tonight to ask you to become my Silencer."

"Your what?" For the first time, Idari sounded as confused as Turner felt. He didn't like the sound of that rank either.

The man held up his gloved hand for emphasis. "In the Black Hand there are four Speakers and one Listener - four fingers and a thumb as it were - and each Speaker has a personal Silencer who they use to extend their reach. Think of a Silencer as the talons, or claws, of the Black Hand. Mine was recently killed on a contract and I have selected you as his replacement. From what I have managed to learn, you were something of a prodigy in the Morag Tong and thus your murderous reputation has preceded you..."

Idari cut him off. "And if I were to refuse this position?" she asked. Her hands were on her hips.

"Then you have broken a tenet and will face the Wrath of Sithis," the man replied. His expression was blank. "'Tenet three: Never disobey or refuse to carry out an order from a Dark Brotherhood superior. To do so is to invoke the Wrath of Sithis.'"

The Dunmer sighed. "What does a Silencer do?"

"As my Silencer, you would receive contracts only from me. Due to the nature of this work and our trying times, the responsibility also comes with exemption from the five tenets so that we may take care of Brotherhood members as we see fit. Will you accept this honour? Do note that the tenets continue to apply until after you accept."

"Do I have a choice?" Idari snapped. She sounded fed up. Turner had to admire her courage to stand up to this man in such a way. From what little he understood of their conversation, the stranger was a high ranked and powerful man within the Dark Brotherhood.

The Imperial grinned darkly. "Not in the slightest."

"Then I'll accept."

"A wise decision," the man stated. "The Argonian may have your place in the Cheydinhal sanctuary. I suggest you take him there first and then head out to Chorrol to deal with that important piece of jewellery you still have stowed away in your pocket. I'll give you two weeks in which to hand in that amulet and then return to me in Fort Farragut for your first contract."

Idari grimaced and a hand instinctively flew to the forgotten Amulet of Kings in a pocket of her armour. She remembered vividly the circumstances in which she'd come to be in possession of such an object. Not being native of Cyrodiil, she'd put off the Emperor's task as her mind was filled with what she considered more important. Now she realised that she'd had it in her pocket for more than a month without doing anything with it, and probably should have taken the destruction of Kvatch as a sign to be rid of it.

"I see you have much on your mind, Silencer," the man said, breaking the silence. "You must remember that the Emperor's death affects the whole of Tamriel and not just Cyrodiil. Perhaps that will put things into perspective for you." He took two paces forward and stood before the entrance to the tent that Turner was hiding in. His robed form seemed even more sinister silhouetted at the opening of the tent. "Do you accept your dark destiny, Argonian?" Turner nodded dumbly, though he knew that he, like Idari, had very little choice in the matter. "You've really picked a headstrong one, haven't you?" the man chuckled to the Dunmer.

"I did not pick him," Idari growled. "He followed me. You of all people should know that Lucien, seeing as you seem to know so very much about me already."

"Ah, my dear Silencer, I've barely scratched the surface," Lucien smirked. "I shall take my leave of you now." The man disappeared from view under a powerful chameleon spell. Turner heard his footfalls grow softer as he left the camp, and this time the Dark Elf let him leave.

Idari fumed with anger and threw a fireball at the wood pile that had once been the campfire. It sprang back to life, bathing the camp in a soft golden light "You know, this is your fault!" she shouted at the Argonian.

Turner swallowed. "It sounded like he was going to approach you anyway," he pointed out, pulling his knees up into his chest as he sunk back to the floor.

"If I were you, I would keep my mouth shut, pondscum," the Dunmer snapped through gritted teeth. Her sword was in her hand. "Perhaps you were not listening when Lucien said I was exempted from the five tenets, or perhaps you just don't hold your continuing life in a high enough regard to keep your mouth closed."

The silence lasted longer than Idari had anticipated. She had expected the Argonian to have a whole score of questions to ask her. He didn't speak a word and remained huddled at the back of his tent with his knees drawn up into his body to protect against the cold. It seemed as though hours had passed before she sunk in front of the warm flames and he plucked up all the courage he had to crawl from the tent to join her by the fire. He kept his distance from her, remaining at least the length of her shortsword away.  
"You have questions, pondscum?" she asked to break the silence. The first rays of sunlight were beginning to appear on the horizon.

Turner chose his words carefully. It stung a little that she persisted with racial slurs, but he did not allow her words to bother him. "These five tenets... What are they?" he said. He tried not to look at her face, fiddling with his fingers.

Idari was impressed that he had managed to choose a thoughtful question and decided to reward him with a straight answer. "The five tenets are the rules that all Dark Brothers and Dark Sisters must follow. They're long and wordy, but basically amount to: don't disrespect the Night Mother, don't betray our secrets, don't disobey or refuse an order, don't steal from a member and don't murder a member, to do so is to invoke the Wrath of Sithis."

"Who exactly is Sithis? And the Night Mother?" he replied curiously.

"Sithis is our Dread Father," Idari told him in a low voice. She remembered asking those two questions herself when she'd first been initiated to the Dark Brotherhood. The Morag Tong didn't worship Sithis, and instead murdered in the name of Mephala, the Webspinner. "He is our patron and we kill in His name. Our Night Mother is our Unholy Matron, she gave birth the Brotherhood. Legend has that Sithis came to the Night Mother and bore her five sons who were to become the first Black Hand. She hears the prayers of people who wish assassinations and speaks to the Listener. Some people think that she and her sons might have been the very first sacrifices to Sithis, but not very much is known about her these days."

"So they're gods?"

"No," she replied quickly. "They aren't gods at all. The Night Mother is the spirit that guides the Dark Brotherhood and the Morag Tong, while Sithis is supposed to be the state of chaos. Sithis existed before the world but does not dwell in Oblivion, so it is assumed that he resides in, and is, the Void where spirits are supposed to be sent to at death. As Dark Brothers and Sisters we send souls to Sithis and Sithis provides us with an afterlife, I guess. We didn't worship Sithis in the Morag Tong so you'll have to ask Vicente or Ocheeva for details."

Turner stared deep into the flames for a while, his golden eyes glinting in the light. The sun peaked over the Valus Mountains to the east as they waited and the air began to warm slightly as the area was flooded with dawn light. Idari rose abruptly and doused the fire.

"I hate it when Lucien approaches me with an offer that I simply can't refuse," she grumbled to herself as she prepared for the last leg of the journey to Cheydinhal. "Obviously I shall have to do a little more research about him now..."


	3. Of Secret and Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turner takes his first steps in the Dark Brotherhood as he is introduced to some of his new Family

### Chapter 3 - Of Secret and Shadow

Despite a lack of sleep, Idari insisted that the pair set off towards Cheydinhal shortly after first light. The dawn threw long shadows on the ground and dark clouds lingered above them as they rode in complete silence.

The skies opened on them after less than an hour on the road. The Argonian was unphased by the rain - he didn't own anything he wanted to protect, and the droplets slew off his scales to leave him feeling perfectly content in the deluge. By contrast, his companion was muttering a string of Dunmeri curse words. Her leather armour was ill-adapted to wet weather and her hood was constantly funnelling water into her face. She rummaged blindly through her saddlebags for her cloak but by the time she found it she was too soaked for it to be of any use.

Cheydinhal would have been his next destination after Bruma when he was a travelling bard, but he had never had the opportunity to make the trip and so this was his first time seeing the city. When they reached the gates of Cheydinhal the torrent had eased off enough for Turner to catch his first glimpses of the walled city through the parting water droplets. They left their horses in the stables in the care of the ostler and ventured through the huge wooden gates into the city itself. It was more beautiful than the history books had done it credit for being, and in the wake of the rain, it seemed to glisten like he was finally reaching some promised land. Turner snorted with laughter when he saw it, and he heard Idari’s irritated muttering. She just didn’t understand the irony of the moment, he supposed.

Most of the citizens seemed to have fled inside to escape the weather and the only people left out in the rain were the guards stationed on the walls and patrolling the streets, each one of them soaked to the skin. In Bruma, the guard captains took an active role in the city. It was their philosophy that their promotion did not put them above the men under their command, and so they still took shifts on the walls and on the streets even in the heaviest of snow storms. Here the opposite appeared to be true. Turner didn’t see a single captain’s uniform as he tried to take stock of the town, and he decided that even though the city looked beautiful on the outside, it seemed that the beauty of the place was only skin deep.

Idari stormed ahead of him, seeming to be unconcerned about whether he kept pace with her or left. A pair of beggars were sheltering from the rain on the porch of the largest house in the city. Turner remembered his time as a beggar vividly, hiding from the weather under any structure large enough. It seemed strange to be watching them rather than joining them, and he felt a pang of guilt for the beggar he'd killed in Bruma whose death had got him to where he was today. He didn't miss that life, but his heart went out to them and he made a mental note to find them when he had earned some coin and give them some money for their troubles. If there was anything he could do make their life a little easier, anything at all, he would find a way to do it.

The plaque on the large house read Riverview, and the building faced onto a small plaza around a stone statue which was surrounded on all sides by large houses. The Chapel of Arkay loomed majestically over them, plunging the area into the shade and protecting it from the worst of the rain that had thundered in from the north-west.

There was one house just off the plaza that stood out from the others. It was just as large, but in a terrible state of repair, placing it in stark contrast to every other home in the otherwise unblemished city. A low crumbling wall surrounded the property, and old wooden boards were nailed over the windows and the door to deter entry. Weeds crept up the decaying walls, breaking up the white paint and causing huge cracks as large chunks of plaster peeled off. Behind the house was the small well covered with an iron grate which was starting to come apart.

The Dunmeri assassin ignored the surrounding buildings and headed towards the crumbling wreck. The design of the door was clever, seeming completely boarded up from afar. However, if one looked closely, there were seams around the edge which showed that the opening was readily accessible, for those who knew its secret. Turner wondered how the infamous Dark Brotherhood could hide so blatantly in a major city without arousing the suspicions of the citizens, especially one that was otherwise so spotless. Perhaps everybody in Cheydinhal knew and it was just never spoken about, or perhaps they really were oblivious to the house and its occupants. Hidden in plain sight, where nobody would think to look.

Idari pushed the door open and dragged him inside, closing it behind them. The interior of the abandoned house was not much better than the outside. The room was strewn with pieces of broken furniture, a rickety looking table, the shattered remains of a barrel, and everything was coated with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. A few streaks of light came through a boarded, grimy window at the back of the property, and precarious looking stairs led up to a second floor that looked unstable. For one thing, Turner was sure that this did not seem like the hiding place of a top secret illegal organisation. It crossed his mind for a moment that this was actually not the location of the Dark Brotherhood and Idari had just brought him here to finish him off away from where he might be recognised and traced back to Baenlin. He wondered why she would have gone to such lengths to defend him from her superior if this was her plan, but he realised he knew next to nothing about her. This could be her assassin's calling card for all he knew. Idari Mortha might not even be her real name.

She interrupted his thoughts as she slammed a dagger angrily into the remnants of a table, a cloud of dust leaping into the air. Idari seemed more irritated than enraged, but Turner took a step away from her to be safe. He didn't dare do anything that would make her turn on him instead of that unfortunate table.

"I should never have left Morrowind," he heard her mutter. She cursed violently as she tried and failed to wrench her dagger out of the table. "I should have listened to my mother's advice and settled down, become some imbecile's damned trophy wife!" Turner could barely tell whether she was frustrated with him or whether she was frustrated with herself. Either way, his instincts told him that he shouldn't try to interrupt her. "Should have stuck in the country where assassination is legal to avoid the bloody Imperial City Prison!" He wasn’t sure if she was afraid of spending time in prison, or whether she had already spent time in prison, but it seemed that she was definitely angry with herself. Turner thought that she would definitely have been far more miserable married off than in prison in Cyrodiil. She didn't strike him as the kind of woman willing to settle down to an arranged marriage.

She grasped the hilt of the dagger and cast an explosive spell, shattering the table but leaving the dark ebony dagger intact. Turner felt his heart skip a beat when she rounded on him with the knife in her hand. "Go into the basement. There's a hole in the wall and a small passageway leading to a big door that glows red. It will ask you a question - something like 'What is the colour of night?' - and you have to answer 'Sanguine, My Brother'. That's all. Off you go."

The Argonian nodded dumbly and moved towards the basement door, which he had so far failed to notice in the gloom. Unlike the rest of the building, this door was in oddly good condition and there was no dust on the handle or frame. He slipped through it alone, leaving the Dark Elf behind to brood about her situation, knife still in her hand but now all but ignored.

Idari knew that she couldn't cope with all of this responsibility. Being a Silencer was bad enough. While people wouldn't know her face they would fear her reputation for all eternity. They would fear her presence, fear her blades, and fear a name they would never know.

She certainly didn't look like she was worthy of their fear. She was short for her race, and anything but muscular. Without her hood, she looked like an average Dark Elf woman that one wouldn't spare a glance at if she ever passed by in the street. But she was an assassin, and it was time that people who would never know her name started to remember that. Perhaps their disbelief was her greatest weapon of all.

And then there was that strange business in the Imperial City Prison.

The Emperor may have given Idari the Amulet of Kings, but that did not mean that she was bound to serve him or his dying wishes. Morrowind had its own monarchy; they didn't need the Septims. It had been quite by accident that she had stumbled upon the city of Kvatch so briefly after her impromptu release from prison, and now they were hailing her as their hero.

The citizens of the once great city had been flocked in the refugee camp in their hundreds, bleeding and dying and crying for their dead. The sky had been red with fire and the ground had been red with blood. Running into that one Oblivion gate had sealed the assassin's fate.

Now she would never be truly anonymous, never truly be just another face in the crowd.

The citizens of the city would have never let her leave them if she hadn't stolen one of the few surviving horses and rode out of there as fast as the animal could carry her. They had begged her to help them coordinate an assault on the city to liberate it from the rest of the daedra, but she had to draw the line and leave. Saving Tamriel was not what she was prepared to waste her time on. She was an assassin, not a hero. She would never be a hero.

The Dark Elf sighed heavily, wrenching her thoughts back to real life as she descended through the cluttered basement to the sanctuary. It was a home for her, though in her heart she still missed Sadrith Mora. Maybe not Sadrith Mora as it was now, but Sadrith Mora when she had been growing up before her elder brother had got himself killed and set this bizarre series of events into motion.

The door recognised her and swung open without insisting on the password. She hadn’t lived here for very long, but it already felt like something of a safe place for her. The other assassins were bound by the Tenets not to attack her or steal from her, and she could easily come and go as she pleased with no fear of being arrested or questioned by the city guards. It would have been the perfect base for her, if not for its proximity to Morrowind.

The sanctuary was almost empty today, save for a young ex-beggar being cornered by a Bosmer and an Orc with a look of terror on his face. The Orc had a hand on his sack shirt and was lifting him off his feet. The Bosmer stood to the side, toying with a dagger that she seemed to be using more for intimidation than for causing harm. They appeared to be interrogating him about how he had gained access to their home, and as soon as he spotted the Dunmer he pointed to her shakily.

"I came here with her!" he claimed, desperation in his voice. He probably knew that Gogron could break his neck with a flick of his wrist. He also looked as though he was about to soil himself, so she had to admire his nerve for having not done so already.

The Orc turned to see what he was pointing at, though Telaendril acted as though he was trying to distract her with trickery and remained focused on him. Turner had been lowered just enough for the claws of his bare feet to scrabble on the floor, and Idari saw a look of slight relief on his features as he touched the ground again.

"Welcome back, Sister," Gogron grinned. He sounded almost nonchalant and cheerful, despite being moments away from murdering somebody who he thought had violated his sanctuary.

Telaendril finally turned. "How did your contract fare?" the Bosmer asked her. Both assassins seemed to be ignoring the struggling Argonian behind them.

The Dark Elf grinned sadistically. "Baenlin lays dead and his manservant Gromm will live to fight another day of his useless existence. It is a shame that nobody saw fit to mention Baenlin's other servant." Turner, who had been afraid that she was going to let them tear him to pieces, relaxed slightly. He still feared for his life, but then he was still suspended by the front of his shirt and the Orc holding him was still terrifying.

"Don't be ridiculous, Sister. Vicente would have mentioned if there was another servant!" the Orc blurted out with enough force that he lifted the Argonian away from the floor again. Turner yelped, struggling in his grasp.

"I thought the same thing," Idari admitted, folding her arms across her chest. "Evidently whoever asked the Night Mother for Baenlin's blood didn't know of a second servant either, or I would have been informed..." She paused a moment, chuckling softly. "That is no way to treat your newest Brother, Gogron. I am not so sure that Sithis would approve."

The large Orc took a moment to figure out exactly what she had said before suddenly recoiling in shock, dropping the Argonian to the ground. The ex- beggar's legs failed him as his feet made contact with the floor and he fell unceremoniously to his hands and knees. A muttered curse escaped his lips and he glared at Gogron as he picked himself up from the ground, dusting off his knees and straightening himself up.

Telaendril smirked at him before speaking, but she at least had the courtesy to appear surprised briefly. "Ocheeva didn't tell us about a new Brother. Had we known of this, we would have been on a better lookout and none of this would have occurred. Brothers and Sisters have been disappearing lately, and we can't be too careful about strangers in the sanctuary."

"This is Baenlin's second servant," Idari explained. "He is to take my place in the sanctuary. This was decided as we travelled from Bruma, though I am not surprised that Lachance could not lower himself to announcing our arrival." She glanced down a corridor towards the back of the sanctuary. "Where is Ocheeva?"

"Ocheeva is on a contract today, but I believe Vicente is asleep downstairs," the Bosmer replied. It amazed Turner how casual they acted now that they weren't trying to kill him. Unlike Idari, they were dressed in casual clothing and made no attempt to hide their faces. "Please accept our apology, Brother. Nobody else will treat you in such a way now that we know who you are." She paused before another small smile pulled at her lips. "Except perhaps M'raaj-Dar. One never can tell how he will react to a new Brother, but it's usually badly." Another pause. "Sister... if he's to take your place, then what is to become of you?"

"I have business to attend to elsewhere." The Dunmer unfurled her arms and placed her hands on her hips, one brushing the hilt of the silver shortsword she wore there at all times. She had moved it from her back to her hip as they travelled from Bruma, but it was almost the full length of her leg and would take some getting used to. "Well, I'll take this useless little piece of pondscum to see Vicente then. He shouldn't be sleeping at this time of day..." She turned sharply on her heels and strolled away. Turner trailed after her, more out of fear of incurring her wrath than anything else, throwing a glance at the pair of assassins behind him. They seemed to return to their everyday routines as quickly as they had turned on him as he entered the sanctuary, as Gogron lumbered off in one direction while Telaendril sat back down with a book.

The passageway Idari led him down was only a few feet wide and covered in rough stone from floor to ceiling. An awkward stack of crates and boxes lingered in one corner, probably filled with some kind of junk or trinkets. A strange sound alerted Turner to the presence of a large skeleton with tattered brown cloth hanging from its old bones as it dragged itself along the corridors of the sanctuary. It lumbered along as if it had some purpose in its death, its empty eye sockets only registering them briefly as it continued its rounds, checking that they were not hostile creatures and then paying them no further heed. Turner would have been scared of the strange being had Idari not acted as though this was a completely ordinary occurrence and practically shoved past it when it blocked her path for a few moments. It seemed as though the Dark Brotherhood liked to keep strange company. He questioned why this was a surprise to him, given the books that he had studied on them and what he had managed to learn in the short time since his impromptu inauguration into their ranks.

As soon as they were safely out of sight of Telaendril and Gogron, Turner growled under his breath: "You could have warned me about them..."

The Dunmer looked at him for a moment, and her red eyes looked mildly amused. "They acted as one would expect them to. In the absence of their superior, they did exactly as they ought to have done. You're a stranger, and this sanctuary is illegal. You could have been a spy for the town guard, or a vengeful family member out for blood! No, you should think yourself lucky that Ocheeva was not here when you arrived. She would have had no inhibitions about gutting you where you stood."

"But don't the... tenets forbid killing a Brother?" He wasn't actually sure on that one, as the tenets had only been explained to him briefly, but the thought of proving the smug Dunmer wrong was enough to overshadow his doubts.

Turner regretted his words immediately. Idari had him pressed against a wall, dagger blade tickling his neck, in less than the time it took him to gasp in surprise. "Don't get smart with me," she warned. She grinned eerily beneath her hood and he knew that he had taken her bait. "If you had been paying attention, you would know that I am no longer bound by the Five Tenets, but you - unfortunately - are. What a dreadful shame, eh?" She was teasing him and he knew it, though for some reason being cornered by this tiny Dunmer was even more terrifying than being lifted from the ground by a muscle-bound Orc. He had to wonder why she had such a foreboding presence when he could probably overpower her in a physical fight. It sent shivers running down his spine. With a flick of her wrist, she had sheathed the dagger and was walking down the corridor again as if nothing has happened. "Besides, even bound by the tenets, I believe an argument could be made for killing a stranger in the sanctuary. Loyalty to one’s family must always come first, after all. Come along, pondscum. It seems apparent that you must be introduced to that confounded vampire, so get a move on."

The Argonian froze. "A... a vampire?" he stuttered. Now he truly was gripped with fear. He had read many books featuring vampires during the short time he'd spent in Cyrodiil: how they would drink the blood of their victims and leave them for dead, and how they possessed superior strength and speed and any sense that one could think of. The chuckling of the Dunmeri assassin brought him back to reality.

"Did you think that draining a person of blood is not murder? No, pondscum, I believe you have not thought this through." She chuckled again, descending a set of stone stairs even further into the subterranean lair. "Besides, you have nothing to fear, Vicente is far too much of a 'gentleman' -" She spoke the word with some disdain. "-To drink from you without your permission and the tenets forbid him from harming you in any way. The very worst he could do to you is fail to inform you of meddling servants belonging to your targets." She added bitterly.

Idari flung the heavy wooden doors open so that one clattered against the wall behind it and the other swung wide enough for the pair to pass through. The room was small and simple, and depressingly dark save for the light of a single guttering candle standing alone in the centre of a round table surrounded by two wooden chairs. Turner looked about for something that was reminiscent of the vampires he'd read of in the stories - perhaps a coffin - and found himself almost disappointed to see ordinary, civilised furniture: a writing desk in impeccable order, an ornately carved chest of drawers with an unlit candelabra sitting atop it, and a wooden chest that showed extreme age but surprisingly little wear. In fact, the only thing that showed the presence of a vampire at all was a stone sleeping slab pushed against one wall, a figure lying upon it who was so still that he appeared... dead.

This was the Vicente that the other sanctuary dwellers had mentioned, the gentleman whose mistake had led to his being here in the first place. Turner knew that he should probably be grateful to the man for not informing the heartless woman of his presence in Baenlin's house. She would probably have killed him in the basement rather than giving him a chance after witnessing him cause a ridiculous accidental death that was so far from a murder he was surprised that Lucien Lachance had allowed him to keep his life at all.

Vicente was asleep, apparently, though Turner found it hard to believe that he could have slept through the racket Idari had made entering his room. His pale face was gaunt and drawn, to the extent that he looked almost like a skeleton, and locks of brown hair were pulled away from his face by a leather band. He was clothed almost entirely in black but dressed like a civilian rather than the leather armour that Turner had seen the other assassins wear. The Argonian suspected that he didn't need it, as he was naturally resistant to most weapons and would have spent very little time outside during daylight hours anyway. His long black trousers and black shirt fit him so well they looked as though they were tailored to him, and a pair of leather boots were set out neatly beside his sleeping slab. It was hard to tell what race he had been before he had been turned, but with a name like 'Vicente' Turner had to assume that he had once been a Breton.

Turner had always presumed of assassins that they would wake at the slightest of touches and spring up with knives in hand ready to kill. Idari, however, did not seem to have made the same assumption. She walked up to the sleeping vampire, put her fingers into her mouth and whistled shrilly. The Argonian felt his ears ring and heard Telaendril swearing in the distance through the open door as he massaged his temples to alleviate the stabbing headache that was beginning to form. The vampire had risen from his slab in the time it took Turner to blink. He was a formidable man with an ebony longsword and ebony claymore in each hand in spite of their combined weight, ready to strike. Turner even noted that Vicente had taken the time to pull on his boots in what had seemed like the blink of an eye.

He stared at the Dunmer as he sheathed his blades, crossing them across his back into scabbards that he had not been wearing when he slept. "Sister, I find that your actions are strangely unnecessary." He was definitely a Breton, and an old one judging by the way he spoke and the way he carried himself. His tone was calm and measured as he searched her amused features for any sign of remorse. "I must urge you to actually consider your actions in future. You may have alerted the City Watch, which will require some substantial bribes to keep them off of our backs."

"Oh, calm yourself Brother," Idari scoffed, folding her arms. "It's raining outside and all the guards are trying to keep their hair dry.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “I have brought a new Brother with me."

For the first time, the vampire's eyes wavered from her to the Argonian. "Indeed. It had not escaped my notice, Sister. I was merely addressing the matters at hand first." He looked squarely at the ex-beggar for a few moments as if sizing him up before speaking again. Finally, his features softened. "Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Vicente Valtieri." He bowed his head courteously, more evidence that he had been born into a society and an age when manners had held far more importance than they did now. "I see your apprehension, so I will confirm what Sister Idari has likely told you already: I am a vampire, however, you needn't fear my bite. My devotion to Sithis far over-rules my needs as a vampire. Now perhaps you would be so kind as to introduce yourself."

Turner nodded slowly. He accepted his words, though he was still apprehensive. There wasn't exactly much he could do besides accept them and attempt to live with it, after all. "My name is... Turner," he replied hesitantly. "I know it's not a name generally associated with members of my race, but the story that goes with it is not one I tend to tell..." He paused a moment, aware that not one, but two people were now listening to him. Idari, however, was doing her best to appear disinterested. "I'm afraid my skills don't really suit being an assassin. I'm useless at fighting and sometimes I'm so clumsy I can barely stand on my own two feet without some accident occurring. I own no weapon and my magic skills are... negligible to say the least. In truth, I’m sure that I don’t deserve a place in this sanctuary, however, I hope that given time I will be able to find something that I’m not quite so atrocious at."

Vicente smiled politely, though Turner couldn't tell whether the smile was genuine. "I daresay you will be far from the worst of those we have trained here over the years. As I am sure you suspect I have been a member of the Dark Brotherhood, and indeed this sanctuary, for far longer than any of our Dark Siblings. If you have any questions, I am more than happy to answer them." Without moving his head his expression shifted from polite happiness to being mildly perplexed. "Sister, you seem troubled. What bothers you?"

"What do you know of the Black Hand?" the Dunmer asked slowly, her red eyes narrowing slightly. Her arms unfolded and refolded in the opposite direction.

"Why would you ask that?" It was a question laced with intrigue. With more than two centuries in the Dark Brotherhood under his belt, it was obvious that of all the sanctuary dwellers Vicente was the most likely to know of the Black Hand. If the Black Hand was the leadership of the Dark Brotherhood, Turner wondered why someone who had been with the organisation for as long as Vicente Valtieri was not a member.

"The Black Hand..." Idari said slowly, raising a gloved hand with five fingers outstretched. "Consists of one Listener and four Speakers. Four fingers and one thumb, so to speak. But such a deadly Hand must have claws to extend its ferocity and its impact... Silencers."

Vicente frowned. "You know of the Silencers?" the vampire said slowly, crossing to his table where he took a seat and interlaced his fingers. A moment's pause followed in which he appeared to be considering what she had said to him. "Sister, if you know of the Silencers then that can only mean that you have somehow been promoted to the Black Hand..." Idari nodded. Turner noticed that she was not looking directly at Vicente but was instead focusing on an empty patch of air. "Promotion to Silencer comes with new dangers and high profile targets. You should not take it lightly. You must remain aware that you are still not irreplaceable, and the Black Hand will think nothing of disposing of you should you get in their way or cease to be useful to them. You cannot allow your foolish cultural biases to get in the way of your work, or you may find yourself meeting Sithis in the Void far sooner than you had hoped." He let out an exasperated sigh before standing and crossing to his desk. He drew out a bag of coins and a gilded dagger of elven design that shimmered with an enchantment. "Here is your reward for killing Baenlin, and your bonus for leaving Gromm alive. Now I must speak with our new Brother. Leave us."

The Dark Elf scowled, picking up her rewards and glaring at the Argonian before stomping through the still open door. Turner winced as she slammed the door closed behind her with a loud crash. The racket startled him enough that for a moment he forgot that he was being closed inside a room with an ancient vampire. He tried to stop panic from gripping him as Vicente waved a pale hand towards one of the chairs at his table, gesturing for the newest assassin to sit.

"You have nothing to fear, Brother," Vicente spoke suddenly. His voice was so calm that it was, in itself, almost scary. "In fact, you have more to fear from Sister Idari than from anybody else here in this sanctuary, as she is no longer bound by the Five Tenets. You do not seem worried about her, though she obviously treats you with some disdain, so I imagine the story of how you came to accompany her here is indeed a story worth telling."

Turner recounted the tale of how he had come to be in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary beneath Cheydinhal. He didn't start at the very start as he ought to have done, to go as far as to explain why he was in Bruma in the first place but he managed to tell the tale from its beginning in Olav's Tap and Tack, to his time in the Bruma Mages Guild, to his service under Baenlin. The vampire reacted very little to the story, besides raising an eyebrow and leaning back in his chair when the young Argonian came to explaining how he had met Idari when she had killed his master. He recapped how an oversight had allowed him to follow her from the basement, and how only his own clumsiness had led to his detection. He told of their journey to Cheydinhal, their meeting with Lucien Lachance and how Idari had practically persuaded the man not to kill him - though it struck him as odd that she should go to so much trouble to save his life and then continue to hate him exactly the same as before - and he told of the meeting with the Orc and the Bosmer outside and how they had pinned him to a wall instead of trusting his word. At this, Vicente leant forward in his chair again, chuckling.

"Brother, that is to be expected," he insisted, obviously amused. "Assassins make a living of being distrusting. I doubt you shall meet an assassin whose honest word would be worth two Septims."

Turner frowned because he was fairly sure that Idari seemed like the type who would never break her word, ever, even on pain of death. She also didn't seem like the type of person who would value a few coins over her own personal honour. "But Idari saved my life... She didn't have to, she could have let Lucien Lachance kill me, but she didn't..."

"Idari Mortha is the exception, not the rule," Vicente attempted to explain, though the argument seemed weak. "She is not truly Dark Brotherhood material, not yet. She was raised in the Morag Tong, and while the legality of it did not appeal to her, the concept of honour did. The contract did not mention you explicitly, so you did not need to die. You tell me that you have seen her murder other people, an ostler, bandits, but they stood in her way. As long as you remain out of her way, I imagine you shall be quite safe from her blades. Eventually, she will break this cycle, and at that point, she will be truly unstoppable. You must have some opinion of her that you feel like sharing..."

The Argonian considered this. "She killed many people outside of Bruma, I don't believe that that is the reason why she left me alive. She is deadly with a sword, and she is deadly with magic. She is racist and she is enigmatic, but I also see that she is brilliantly intelligent. She lost a lot in becoming a Silencer, but she saved my life, and for that, I owe her greatly. It is not for me to pass judgement on her, but I believe that she is far more complex than she wishes people to believe."

"You will defend her despite her roots in House Telvanni?"

"She cannot help where she was born." This answer was decidedly shorter than the others and delivered far more tersely. He made no attempt to elaborate upon it.

"Interesting." Vicente steepled his fingers and said nothing further.

There was silence for a moment or two, punctuated by sounds of distant arguing coming from the entrance hall and creaking footsteps of the shambling skeleton, all muffled by the closed doors. Finally, Vicente smiled and rose to his feet. "Come, Brother, I will show you around the sanctuary." He waved a hand for Turner to follow him and exited the room. "I am afraid I cannot introduce you to the other sanctuary members now, as many are out on contracts, including our Matron Ocheeva, however, I am certain they will introduce themselves to you in time."

The tour itself was blissfully short. He was a shown a large room just above the one belonging to the vampire that belonged to the sanctuary leader Ocheeva. It turned out that only Vicente and Ocheeva were thought of highly enough to have rooms of their own, and as a result, the pair were jointly in charge of the sanctuary, though officially Ocheeva's word was final. Turner suspected she would consult Vicente whenever she faced a decision she required a good deal of experience to make. It was a large room but it was mostly empty, no sign that it belonged to anyone at all, save for a small, tidy desk and bed that could have been owned by anybody. The entrance hall, Vicente explained, was not used as regularly as it might have been, and usually people only went through it to get elsewhere, rather than staying in there for any period of time, though the bookshelf in the corner did tend to attract the odd Brother or two for a spot of quiet reading. The first time they passed through the room, it was completely empty save for the skeleton creature which the vampire introduced as the Dark Guardian, though apparently everybody had a different nickname for the wretched thing.

The next room he was shown was a Training Room, or so it said on the rough plaque above the door. It was littered with training dummies and archery targets. Vicente attempted to explain that people used different targets for different purposes, though at their current strength, it was more a case of one target per Brother or Sister. The Orc and Bosmer from earlier stood practising at their respective targets, the female with a bow and arrow while the male favoured a large axe. The vampire introduced them as Telaendril and Gogron gro-Bolmog, and they both acknowledged the introduction without dropping their focus on what they were doing. They passed back through the entrance hall, in which Idari was now 'reading', though Turner noted she had picked up a book so hurriedly that it was upside down to her. He wondered who she was trying to fool.

The final room was the Living Quarters, and the long tunnel leading to it indicated that they were travelling even further underground, past a small brown rat that the vampire said they had named Schemer and was something of a pet to the assassins. The room itself consisted of several small beds that obviously had very different owners, and a table covered in the remains of food and empty bowls. Cooking equipment was stacked up nearby alongside a small fire pit. Vicente told him that a young Breton girl named Antoinetta Marie tended to take cooking duty when she was in the sanctuary, and at other times people saw to themselves. He showed Turner to a bed and said that Ocheeva would be along when she got back from her contract with his armour and answers to any questions that he thought of, and then the vampire muttered something about returning to his slumbers and departed, leaving Turner alone save for the rat.

Turner sat back on his bed, surprisingly contented with the situation because, after all these years, he'd finally found a place that he could consider a proper home.

Even if it was within a den of assassins.


	4. Weynon Priory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a month of avoiding her duties, Idari finally makes it to Weynon Priory

### Chapter 4 - Weynon Priory

Idari Mortha had ridden at a casual pace across Cyrodiil for almost eight days when she finally arrived at the city of Chorrol. She had been putting this trip off because she knew that her profession as an assassin was in danger of being revealed every moment she spent in the presence of this supposedly high-ranking Blade. She probably wouldn’t have ever made this journey if Lucien Lachance had not ordered her to do so when he promoted her.

The Emperor had pardoned her of her crimes before his death, which meant she was no longer guilty of several of the crimes she had been charged with, but she had committed at least five murders since then as well as multiple thefts. She imagined the Emperor's illegitimate son would not have been so quick to forgive her if he knew the reality of it. Idari could only wonder how a law abiding Blade would take to dealing with a murderer like her. Part of her feared that she would end up right back in her cell in the Imperial City Prison, though she wasn’t sure that Blades held that authority now that the throne sat empty.

Uriel Septim had told her before his death to deliver the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre, who was apparently the only person who knew where to find the only surviving heir to the Cyrodilic throne. Idari couldn't see how a retired Blade would be of any use in 'closing shut the jaws of Oblivion', as the Emperor had told her. Only one of the four people who had barged into her cell that fateful day had survived the events which followed, but he had pointed her towards Chorrol when she had told him of the Emperor’s last words. Of course, she had told him that she hadn’t seen what had become of the Amulet of Kings and he had accepted her words in his grief, but she wasn’t sure that he had believed her.

The Dunmer reached the city gates late at night, but decided she didn't want to risk being seen staying the night there. She rode east towards Weynon Priory, ignoring her own tiredness and her body’s cry for sleep. Part of her felt that she might be recognised now that she was a member of the Black Hand, even though there was no way that her identity had been advertised around Cyrodiil in the wake of her promotion.

Weynon Priory was not far from Chorrol, and she arrived there a little after midnight. There was a small chapel across from a large building that straddled the road which she assumed to be living quarters, and behind that was a small stable. Idari dismounted and guided the stolen paint horse into the stable, tying its reins to a post. She glanced around, checking that she had not been followed. When she was certain that there was nobody nearby she headed to the door of the larger building and tried the handle gently. The door was locked and Idari swore angrily. What sort of monks felt the need to lock their doors?

She delved into a pocket of her black armour and pulled out a lockpick. She knew that picking the lock was risky and could easily land her back in prison if the wrong person were to see her, but she wasn't prepared to wait until morning for somebody to open the door. Idari didn’t have any idea what to expect on the other side, and she certainly wasn’t likely to recognise one monk as different from any other monks, but if she wanted to get back to the Dark Brotherhood sooner rather than later, she supposed that trespassing in an abbey was not the worst thing that she could be doing right now.

The door was easy to unlock and held her back for a minute at most.

The Dunmer snuck inside and looked around furtively for anyone who could be Jauffre or any clues as to his identity. The ground floor was empty of people and sparsely furnished, and the faint glow of candlelight from upstairs was the only light in the building. Idari suspected that the monks would be asleep at this hour, but she could not be sure of the schedule that they kept. They would definitely be sitting ducks if she ever received a warrant for their assassination.

She made it up the stairs without a sound, noting the difference in stability between these and the ones she had encountered in Bruma. The stairs branched partway up and led to two landings on opposite sides of the building. Idari took the leftmost stairs to approach the candlelight. There were several old men curled up in the beds that lined the wall, but she realised she had no way of knowing which man to wake and scowled at the thought of having to spend the entire night here after she had gone to the trouble of breaking in.

From her new vantage point she could see a dim glow coming from the opposite landing, shrouded from the ground floor by large bookcases which lined the balustrade as well as the back wall. She crept across the stairs and peered around the corner to see a man seated bolt upright at a large desk with pen in hand, seemingly scribbling across the page with the speed of his writing. He looked up from his desk so quickly that she barely had time to duck back behind the bookshelf, before muttering something to himself and continuing to scratch at the page with his quill. As she heard his chair scrape back across the wooden floor, Idari realised that her choices were now limited to approaching this man for answers or being caught trespassing as soon as he put stopped working.

She chose to confront him.

She straightened herself from her sneaking crouch and slipped around the bookcase, sauntering across the room with what she hoped was an air of confidence. The man looked old and appeared, on first glance, to be a Breton. His hair was grey and thinning and his face was wrinkled and scarred, but there was something about him that made her sure that she had found who she was looking for. Idari wondered how long it had been since he had last seen a proper battle or wielded a weapon, but she knew instinctively that he had been a soldier for many years and that this life of prayer and paperwork did not come naturally to him.

He seemed to be looking at her before she even came into view, but he made no move to attack or draw a weapon, despite his hand twitching towards a decorative letter opener on his desk. "Who are you?" the man demanded. "And why are you here?" Even at this age, he seemed like the type of man who could be out of the chair and across the room at a moment’s notice if necessary. 

Idari raised a hand in a futile attempt to show that she was not a threat. “I am looking for a man named Jauffre,” she said. She wasn’t afraid of him, and if this scenario did not end how she wanted it to she would have no issues killing him.

"I am Jauffre," the man replied. Outwardly he appeared to relax, but Idari saw his mouth set into a hard line and his hand inch minutely closer to the blade beside him. "What is your business at this late hour?"

"The Emperor is dead..."

"I know. I read about it in the Black Horse Courier over a month ago," the Breton snapped, cutting her off. Everybody in Tamriel would have read about it in the Black Horse Courier by now. Perhaps if she had brought him this information at the time, he would have been more receptive to her.

Idari fixed the Breton with a look of complete scorn. "The Emperor is dead and so are all of his heirs," she continued, repeating the first part of the sentence with added emphasis. "But I have information that you know the location of another heir. Also, I’ve brought you this.” She dug a hand into a pocket and pulled out the 'Amulet of Kings' that the Emperor had pushed into her hands with his final breath. To her it seemed of overinflated importance, but she had quickly decided that it was more important that she kept it with her instead of selling it off to a petty thief.

Jauffre hands closed into a fist on his desk as he recognised the jewellery instantly. During his long career with the Blades, he had seen this amulet many times and knew that its appearance in the hands of a trespassing Dunmer could not be a coincidence. "How..? Where did you get this? The initial reports said that it was missing from the Emperor's body when he was found." Idari didn’t know why the one Blade who had survived the attack had declined to mention that she had been there, but he must have had his reasons.

"The Emperor gave it to me."

"A likely story," the Breton scoffed. "When would someone like you have had a chance to meet the Emperor, let alone be given the Amulet of Kings?"

"I was there when he was killed," she replied simply, enjoying the look of shock crossing the Blade's face. She idly tossed the amulet from hand to hand.

"I think you should explain yourself," Jauffre replied through gritted teeth. "Now." He had half risen from his seat, his hands finally closing around the hilt of his letter opener. The Dunmer was sure that there were weapons hidden around his small study, but she admired his ability to use what he had on hand.

Idari paused to consider whether she should tell him the cynical or the bloodthirsty version of the truth. She didn’t think that Jauffre would particularly approve of either. The Blade who had survived with her had chosen to believe her story, even though he had been absent at the moment of the Emperor’s death, but it seemed clear that whatever he had reported back to his superiors had either neglected to mention her presence or simply not made it back to Jauffre at Weynon Priory. She hadn't told the Redguard that she had the Amulet of Kings, only telling him that the Emperor had told him to find Jauffre about a matter of some importance. He didn’t even know that there was another heir. At the time she had thought to fence to Amulet and continue running until she left Cyrodiil, but something had always stopped her from ridding herself of its burden.

"It all began in the Imperial City Prison," she explained slowly. She debated telling him that she was in there for theft, murder and resisting arrest, but she decided against it. Knowing that she had slain guards was likely to end up with her back in prison, even with the Emperor’s pardon. "I don't have time to tell the full story, so let's just get this over with. The imbecile prison guards had placed me in the wrong cell ahead of my execution. The Emperor and three of his – well, I suppose, your - most incompetent Blades had planned to access a hidden escape tunnel inside my cell to get away from the assassins who had murdered his heirs. I don't know why they thought putting an escape tunnel in a prison cell was a good idea, it is completely illogical to me, and makes it all too easy for prisoners to escape…” She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Anyway, the short version of the story is that I followed them down the tunnel after the Emperor said he’d seen my face in his dreams. As you probably know, they were attacked and two of the Blades as well as the Emperor were killed. I don't know who trained those morons, but you should re-evaluate who you allow to teach them because they walked straight into an ambush. Twice. The one who survived pushed me into a side room and told me to protect the Emperor with no weapons, no armour and still Silenced from my imprisonment. I don’t know what he expected, really. Assassins came through a hidden tunnel and stabbed the Emperor in the back before I could do anything. He gave me this Amulet before he fell. Simple enough for you?"

Idari had been pacing backwards and forwards as she told her version of events, still tossing the Amulet of Kings from hand to hand, but suddenly it was Jauffre who caught it. He inspected it closely, peering into the facets of the red ruby and checking for any flaws or marks before he fixed her in a hard stare when he was apparently satisfied. "What you say seems far-fetched," he said. "But the Emperor was renowned for having visions of what will be in the future, so I don't doubt that what you said could have happened. I won't ask what you did to be in that section of the Imperial City Prison, reserved only for those being considered for execution. If the Emperor pardoned you then I shall have to trust his good judgement." He slipped the Amulet into a pocket of his robes and returned to his seat. "My reports tell me that the assassins who attacked wore red robes emblazoned with a golden sun, but I have yet to narrow down their identity. Perhaps you can tell me more.”

"I did not come here to be asked all of these useless questions," the Dunmer retorted impatiently. "They used bound armour and weapons over their robes, but it seemed as though that was their only skill. Their training was poor and their skills were rusty, and had I been armed and not Silenced, I would have easily been able to defeat them all in combat. Look, I have brought you the Amulet of Kings. I think we both know that I did not have to do so. Good luck finding out who killed the Emperor, but here my involvement ends." She turned on her heels and began to walk away.

The Blade sighed. "You're an impatient one for somebody who carried a priceless artefact in her pocket for over a month," he said in a low voice. Idari stopped in her tracks. "Many years ago the Emperor summoned me to his room in my capacity as his Captain of the Blades stationed in the Imperial City. A baby boy lay sleeping in a basket and I knew at once that the baby was the Emperor's illegitimate son. He told me to take the boy away and to watch over him as he grew. His Majesty wanted the boy to grow up in a safe environment, but I believe that he knew that if a disaster were to occur, I would be called upon to find his son. He always knew when something drastic was going to happen. Though it seems that by a cruel twist of fate the boy is now the last surviving heir to the Septim dynasty. Nobody knows of his existence. I placed the boy with a childless couple and told them that he was an orphan, watching them from afar as he grew and making sure that he did not want for anything. For a short while I lost track of him somewhere near the Gold Coast, but then he reappeared suddenly as a priest in Kvatch. Last my intelligence told me he was still there. Now, you tell me if the Emperor said anything else to you before he died."

Idari spun around again, gripping the hilt of her sword. "Well, if the boy is in Kvatch, he’s dead,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heard that Kvatch fell to the daedra shortly after the Emperor’s death.”

"I heard the Oblivion gate at Kvatch was closed."

"It was. I closed it."

Jauffre stood up abruptly, his chair slid backwards loudly. "Then you go back to Kvatch and search through the survivors," he growled. "Do not tell me all is lost until you find Martin, or you find Martin's corpse among the rubble. I don't care if it takes you a full year to comb through every chunk of plaster, every splinter of wood. He is the heir to the Cyrodilic throne and you will bring him back here, dead or alive."

"A priest?" the Dunmer replied, unfazed. "I know that the chapel in Kvatch still mostly stands, so perhaps the priest inside of it could have survived. But if you want the heir found, it is your job to find him. I have brought you the Amulet of Kings. My involvement is over."

"No. I am afraid you are wrong," the Breton replied harshly. "You will be the one to go and retrieve Martin, and you will do so willingly.” He fixed his cold grey eyes on her face. "And I will tell you why. Because it will not be difficult for me to find out your true name as I know which cell you were kept in in the Imperial City Prison. Because I do not believe that you have fulfilled whatever you feel to be your obligation to the Emperor’s dying wishes by bringing this to me, as I have spent a month searching for an amulet that you had sitting in your pocket the entire time. And also because I have seen your face, and I am sure that you have committed crimes since the Emperor pardoned you – to which the only witnesses were yourself and a man in my employ – and I will not hesitate to have you thrown back in prison." Idari’s fingers instinctively curled around the hilt of her shortsword, to which Jauffre raised an eyebrow. “You truly believe you are the first to come here and threaten me, a retired man, thinking that they would win in a fight? Believe me when I remind you that one is not promoted to the rank of Grandmaster without showing skill with a blade. You believe that you have youth and speed on your side, but I have experience. By all means, draw your sword.”

Idari scowled. She was tempted to call his bluff and attack him anyway. "I will go to Kvatch for you this once, but do not expect me to become some pathetic errand runner for you." She strode across the room to the stairs, then stopped and turned back to face the old man. "Oh, and the next time you attempt to threaten me, you won't live long enough to explain yourself. Good night."

“If you have not returned or sent word within two weeks, I will have your face plastered on every wall in Tamriel.”

Jauffre stared at her as she leapt over the balcony without a further word and he heard the door slamming closed behind her. He pulled the Amulet of Kings back out of his robes and sighed, staring into the ruby red gem in the centre. He knew that this unorthodox Ashlander was the only hope Cyrodiil had left, but he wished that it could have been somebody in whom he had more faith. He half expected that she would just return when he was asleep and stab him, or simply call his bluff and disappear. She was the only reported person in the province who had managed to close an Oblivion gate and survive, and if the Emperor had truly had visions of her then she was no doubt going to be of great importance over the next few months. He just didn't know how long she would be willing to do what he asked of her. There was only so long that he could use the threat of revealing her true identity as leverage.

At the sound of a tentative cough, his grey eyes lifted from the Amulet - which he hastily thrust into a drawer of his desk - and he saw the elderly prior standing before him.

"Is anything wrong, Brother Jauffre?" he asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes and stifling a yawn.

"Nothing, Father," the Blade replied calmly. "Just an associate of mine dropping in with a progress report. Do not concern yourself with it. Go back to sleep."

Prior Maborel shifted uneasily. "The doors were locked tonight, Brother Jauffre, and your associates know to visit during daylight hours. They also left in something of a hurry... I think they've broken one of Brother Piner's vases..."

"There is nothing wrong," Jauffre repeated. "The matter was an urgent one and she was required to pick the lock. From now on, Father Maborel, I suggest leaving the doors unlocked at night so that when she returns she does not have to pick it again. I expect her to be returning within a fortnight. I will take responsibility for Piner's vase; he need not know anything about this. He still sleeps, I assume."

"Of course," Maborel chuckled. "Not even Oblivion itself could wake him. You should get some sleep yourself, Brother. It is getting late."

Jauffre nodded. "I will, Father. I just have to deal with the package she brought me before I turn in for the night. I never expected that my retirement would be cut quite so short, but I fear I may be leaving you soon, Father, to return to the Blades. They will need a Grandmaster - Captains Renault and Steffan have done a good job, mark my words, but Renault was recently killed in action and with this Oblivion Crisis I fear things will only get worse and they will require a guiding hand."

"Very well, Brother. Talos guide you in your journey, wherever it takes you in this life. Goodnight, Brother," the prior replied, inclining his head courteously and leaving the small study.

The Grandmaster massaged his temples in an attempt to soothe his aching head and sighed deeply. In the months since he had heard about the sacking of Kvatch, he hadn't thought to send his agents to find Martin. He kicked himself for being so distracted by the death of the Emperor that he had forgotten about such an important charge of his. For all he knew the Emperor's only heir could have been killed in the siege of Kvatch and he was the only person who could be held responsible. If Martin was alive, the gods willing, Jauffre would escort him to Cloud Ruler Temple immediately to where he would be safe from harm until a plan could be drawn up to avenge the Emperor's murder.

Jauffre smiled at the prospect of revenge. He prayed to Talos that he would live to see the day that he could restore Septim blood to the throne. He had never liked High Chancellor Ocato, and didn't wish the Altmer to retain his position of power for longer than necessary.

* * *

Now outside, Idari Mortha cursed loudly as she fumbled with the knots she'd tied to keep her horse in place. Her fingers were cold and turning numb, and she couldn't remember the last time she had had a full night's rest. She was about to draw her sword to cut the horse free when another Dunmer ran up to her and demanded to know who she was and where she came from. She told him through a gritted veil of politeness that she had visited Jauffre and would now be on her way. He tried to point out to her that he knew the priory doors were locked at night and for her to have visited Jauffre, she must have broken in.

Idari was considering ways in which she could kill the interfering stable hand when the knots suddenly came free. She swung herself up onto her horse and told the Dunmer through gritted teeth that she wouldn't bother him again. She wondered why this didn't appear to comfort the man who was on the verge of accusing her for being a thief.  
Admittedly, she might have called him the son of an Ashland whore, and might have accused him of having sexual relationships with the sheep she'd seen around the priory, but that was no reason for him to be so aggressive towards her. She rode away from him as he started to shout curses at her.

The journey was a long one, but would have taken longer if she'd followed the roads instead of riding through the countryside as the crow flies. The horse was pathetically slow and she named it 'Turner' after the stupid Argonian she'd picked up in Bruma.

She could see Kvatch from miles away. The black smoke still billowed into the sky from the wreckage of the city and she could taste ash on her lips from the minute she had passed Skingrad. The first time she had approached the city the sky had been a shade of red as hellfire rained down upon them. That was what had drawn her towards the danger in the first place.

For a brief moment she wondered if the Emperor had wanted her to shut all of the Oblivion gates in order to 'close shut the jaws of Oblivion' but then she realised that the senile old fool would never have tasked such a large job to a single Dunmeri murderer who had just happened to appear to him in a dream one night. Perhaps there was some way for her to close one gate and end this scourge… She just wished he had given her more specific instructions.

Strewn in front of the now closed gate were the corpses of daedra, just left to rot. The corpses of fallen guards had been laid out peacefully near the survivors' camp, far more than had been there when she had first climbed the path to the city. The head of the Kvatch guard, Savlian Matius, was still outside the walls of the city, waiting to lead a squad of men inside to destroy the remaining threats. He had several fewer men than he had had under his command when she had left before, and she knew that this was definitely not his first attempt at a raid. She wondered how he still had men under his command if, after a month, they still had yet to retake even as far as the chapel. How many times had they tried and failed to reclaim their city from the daedra? 

When the Oblivion gate had opened, it had sent out a siege machine that had obliterated huge chunks of the city walls and the daedra had poured in without having to go through the main gate of the city, terrorising and slaughtering the people who had once lived there. It seemed as though the remaining city guard had managed to secure the areas which were now no longer protected by the high walls of the city, but the gates remained sealed and behind them the chapel remained unliberated. The assumption had been that the people who could not be found were still inside, but other than the testimony of a guard who returned to the gate on the verge of death there had been no word on their status for a month. If they were alive, they would be practically starving.

Idari dismounted and approached the guard captain. She whistled loudly and half of the guards clutched their ears in pain and surprise. "I need to find Martin," she shouted towards them, though she didn't quicken her pace to meet them.

"You again?" Savlian Matius growled. There was a deep scar on his cheek that had not been there the last time she had seen him. "Last you were here you told us that our city could burn because you hadn't the time to help us protect it, and now you're interested in finding survivors? You've some nerve, ashborn.” He had a crude map of the ruined city drawn into the dirt beneath his feet, and he beckoned Idari forward to look at it. “Martin was in the city when it was attacked, if he's alive then he's still inside the chapel. Turns out that closing the gate was only half the issue of liberating our city because every time we think we’re getting close to those chapel doors, we take losses that I can’t justify anymore. Do you plan to help us this time, or are you still too busy?" His question dripped with venom.

"Well, it is your city, so really you should be the one to take it back." Idari smirked at him. "But seeing as I've been gone a month and you’ve barely built up the courage to even open the gate - meaning the people in the chapel have either been mauled by daedra or died or starvation by now... I guess you're just too scared to give the order to go in. In any case, I need Martin and you need your city, so for now our needs are the same: to re-secure at least part of Kvatch so I can get him out of there."

"And what's so important about Brother Martin that you need to save him so much more than anyone else?" the Imperial replied tersely.

"He's more important right now than your tiny Imperial mind could even comprehend." Jauffre’s threats still rang in her ears as she thought about leaving them all to their fate. She dug her heels into the ground and drew her sword. "You’ve probably worked out by now that daedra are weak against ice magic, but I managed to get through the gate using stealth. Perhaps consider being a blade rather than a hammer." She doodled some arrows and lines into the map on the floor. “You will not be able to liberate your city in one go. I suggest we go as far as the chapel and secure that area first. Check for survivors; maybe even get those people out. You’ll need more men to take the castle. You’re used to fighting with a large force behind you, but this is what you have now. You have to fight differently.” She didn’t expect that they would listen to her. Hopefully when they died, they would realise she had been right. “Get the gates open.”

The guards edged the gates open so slowly that Idari got impatient and rushed in as soon as they were far enough apart for her to slip through. The entire area was surrounded by destroyed buildings, cut off completely from the rest of the city, and in the centre of what had once been a courtyard was a plinth without a statue on it. The way to the town's keep was blocked by the crumbled remains of the chapel's spired tower which had been torn off during the first wave of the assault on the city. Dozens of scamps milled about in the ruins, scavenging through the wreckages. She took the first daedra by surprise, decapitating two smaller scamps before another flung a fireball in her direction. It hit her in the side as she twisted to impale a scamp hiding in the rubble of what had once been a house. She shrugged it off. Fire had little effect on her when she was wearing her armour. Growing up in the shadow of an active volcano would do wonders for one’s fire resistance.

By the time the Kvatch guard had made it through the gate, she had managed to clear her own path to the chapel. She looked back at Savlian Matius for a moment, and he nodded to her that his men could handle what remained here without her. She wondered why they hadn’t done this already.

She slipped past the remaining enemies and into the Chapel of Akatosh. The door was badly barricaded and the floor around it was covered with badly drawn runes, but somehow they had managed to keep the daedra at bay all this time. There were only half a dozen survivors in the chapel and they were huddled up near the altar around a lit candle and what Idari could only assume was a block of summoned ice that was melting quickly. The fires burning outside and the gaping hole in the roof where the tower had once been meant that everything was blanketed in a thick layer of dark ash. Dozens of bodies were lined up against one wall; the first few were covered with cloths and sheets but the later ones were shrouded by nothing but dust.

"Martin," she snapped. A whistle now would have been cruel, even for her. Weary heads turned towards her, but most of the faces were emaciated. She wondered what they had kept themselves alive with for over a month. Maybe that explained why the first few bodies were covered. "You need to come with me, now.”

An Imperial man in a tattered priest's robe stared at her for a long time. His blue eyes were so intense and felt familiar to her. He didn't make any attempt to stand.

"Are you deaf?" she asked him. Then, turning to the others in the chapel, she demanded: "Is he deaf?"

"I am not deaf," he said in a low, calculating voice. "Who are you and why are you asking for me?"

"My name isn't important. You need to go to Weynon Priory because the assassins who killed your father are going to come after you just as soon as they figure out that you have survived this siege."

Martin looked shocked. "My father was a farmer; he died many years ago..."

"You've been living in a lie!" Idari shouted, drawing more attention as Savlian Matius and his guardsmen marched in through the chapel doors. "Your 'father' was no more related to you than I am. Get your things. We're leaving."

The priest didn't move a muscle, he didn't even flinch. "When the gate closed outside the city, we thought we were saved. But then night fell and nobody came. Days passed and nobody came." Most of the soldiers had their heads bowed in shame, but Savlian Matius stared directly at Idari. He knew who he blamed for this failing. "- But then you came," Martin continued. "And brought with you our salvation, though now you expect me to abandon my people and leave when they will need me the most?"

The Dunmer drew her sword. The guards reacted by drawing their own weapons, but neither party made any move to attack as Idari tried to stay focused on saving all of Tamriel from Oblivion. "The people here don't need a priest. They need an Emperor. You will be of far more use to them if you come with me. Get moving."

"Emperor? My father was a farmer, not an Emperor..." Martin replied. He looked puzzled as he finally pushed himself to his feet.

"You are not and never have been the son of a farmer!" Idari shouted. She swung her sword at a pew angrily and hacked a chunk from the wood. "What do you think the Emperor's wife would have said when she learned of his illegitimate child? Or his other sons? Of course he hid you away! Now all the heirs they knew about are dead and that leaves you. I’m sure they would have left you here to die if that weren’t the case. Or do you want Cyrodiil - or indeed all of Tamriel - to fall to Mehrunes Dagon because you believed yourself to be the son of some long dead farmer?"

"Illegitimate son?" the priest whispered in surprise. The other people in the chapel exchanged looks of surprise, though perhaps more at the thought of him being their Emperor after the month they had spent in these horrific conditions together. “This is ridiculous. How can you come here after all this time with these claims? We have waited for weeks.”

“This is the woman who closed the gate, Brother,” Savlian Matius explained, his voice low. “My men and I have been retaking portions of the city, but our forces are so depleted…” He trailed off. “The failing was mine. She came back asking for you by name, and helped us clear the path to the chapel. We will get these people to safety, I promise, but I think you should go to her, if what she says is true. I don’t think she would have returned if not for something of importance.”

Idari found herself growing impatient. “You’ve seen what they did to Kvatch,” she hissed. “Do you think they attacked Kvatch on the same day the Emperor died for just no reason? The assassins who killed your father will come for you when they realise you survived the siege. Do you think this town can withstand that? Do you think they will survive another assault?”

"All this death?" Martin said quietly. "Could it possibly all have been to kill me? Could I actually have prevented this?"

“No,” Idari sighed. She knew that it wasn’t the case. Nothing could have prevented this. “Come with me to Weynon Priory immediately, and perhaps as Emperor you can bring down vengeance upon the people who did this to your city.”


	5. Cloud Ruler Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idari returns Martin to Jauffre at Weynon Priory, only to discover that she cannot quite achieve the clean getaway that she had planned

### Chapter 5 - Cloud Ruler Temple

The ride back to Weynon Priory took longer than Idari had anticipated. They had only a single horse between them, which they soon discovered was too worn to carry two riders. She had suggested that they steal one of the few horses that had survived the siege of Kvatch, but Martin had forbidden taking anything further from these people who had lost so much already. They made slow progress with one person riding while the other person walked, and the priest insisted on making camp each evening at sundown which completely halted their journey for a few hours. She had brought him back to health with a steady diet of healing potions and as many convalescence spells as her poor skills could muster, but the starvation and terror of the previous month had taken a toll and he was plagued with crippling fatigue and terrible nightmares. Idari was unhappy and impatient with the pace, and eager to return to a profession which required decidedly less fetching of heirs and decidedly more stabbing people in the throat.

She rode far ahead when Martin was walking, considering riding away forever but always somehow finding it within herself to ride back, and found herself kept awake through most of the six nights that they were travelling, worrying about all of the wasted time and missed opportunities.

"Did you know my father?" Martin asked the day after they set out from Skingrad. He had insisted they spend the night in an inn there instead of camping out in the wilderness, though being in a settlement hadn't helped her sleep any better. He was on the horse this morning and made a point of riding alongside her instead of rushing ahead. She despised it, but especially when he tried to make conversation with her.

Idari shook her head. "Not really. I met him once, but I was only there when he died. Strange man. I’m not sure what the people saw in him, really. Kept talking about his visions, his dreams. If he was from a different family, he would have been locked up as a madman. That said, I fail to see why you’re interested in whether or not I knew the man. It's not like you did."

Martin recoiled. "I never knew my father and therefore I have no idea what being an Emperor is like. Everything that I ever knew about my life was pretend. You can't expect me to just suddenly know how to be royalty, I'm only a priest!"

"You were never just a priest, Martin, and it's time you start to realise this. Nobody ever told you who you were because you were illegitimate and knowledge of your birth would cause a scandal. You're lucky the Emperor had the good sense to send you away instead of having you killed in secret. That's how my father would have dealt with an illegitimate child. You're also lucky that nobody knew about your true providence, otherwise you would definitely be dead by now. Your brothers also died, shortly before your father, or nobody would ever have ever had to know about you, and you could have continued to be 'only a priest' forever.” She hated walking alongside him like this, unable to escape the conversation. “Martin, I am sorry to break it to you and shatter your delusions, but we don't control our futures as we'd like to. We can't control anything anymore, and the Nine aren't exactly going to stop the gates of Oblivion from opening, are they? You are." Martin had been horrified to learn that the gate at Kvatch was not the only one that had opened up that fateful day, but at least the others had been far enough away from civilisation to avoid mass casualties.

"And you will help me, my nameless champion?" the priest replied sincerely. For a moment Idari thought he might be joking, but the look on his face told her that he was not. Her original plan had been to drop him off outside of Weynon Priory and ride off into obscurity, but time with Martin had convinced her that that would probably not happen.

"It seems that I, like you, don't have a great deal of choice in the matter,” she sighed. “Your father dreamt about me and here I am, just as he predicted. I tried to fight it. Trust me, I'd rather not be involved and be able to remain a nameless shadow for all eternity, just like the Nerevarine. Nobody remembers her real name, but her actions will go down in the history books for all eternity. I'm already the 'Hero of Kvatch', but that is the way I would like to stay," Idari paused to recollect her thoughts. She didn't want to be involved, but her destiny seemed to be on a locked path. Perhaps it was time to stop fighting it. "Though I shall help you in your quests as long as it is your name that enters the history books and not mine."

"Well it will make things easier for me if I know the name of my champion. When I'm... If I'm Emperor, I promise I will keep your name out of all the books as anything other than the Hero of Kvatch, or whatever other title you acquire during your time with me... Champion of Cyrodiil, Saviour of Tamriel, I don't know. Whatever you become..." She pursed her lips for a moment, considering whether or not to actually reveal her name. "My name is Idari,” she said eventually. “I won't tell you my clan name, though I'm sure you will have no difficulty discovering it in the future. I don't want my parents to find out where I am and send an envoy to bring me home just yet..."

"Important parents?" Martin chuckled. "I suppose that makes both of us."

She turned away from him. "Not anymore."

The countryside rolled before them like ripples of a wide green ocean with tall, majestic trees at every turn and rugged boulders jutting from the ground surrounded by a whole host of wild flowers. Idari didn't care much for nature, and neither did she particularly care for the cities of either Cyrodiil or Morrowind. She'd never planned to stay in Cyrodiil before she was arrested in the Imperial City, and then it had become a necessity to stay in the province. Her original plan had been to travel to High Rock or Valenwood - anywhere far from Morrowind was good in her opinion - and start a life there... Perhaps even she could have started her own guild of assassins someday. But the Brotherhood got her first, and now she was trapped here through the designs of her own destiny.

Martin didn't look much at the countryside as they rode or walked through the Great Forest. He knew that it was a beautiful place and he didn't need to see it to believe it. He was too busy wondering just how much of his life had been a lie and how quickly everything had changed around him on the day that the Great Gate opened outside of Kvatch. The knowledge that it had all been to kill him had struck like a knife in his heart. Hundreds of people that he knew and cared about had been wiped out for him. Even as Emperor, he knew there was no way that he could atone for the tragic loss of their lives.

"Idari, do you believe in the gods?" Martin ventured later in the day after glaring at his sodden priests' robe for a long while. They had recently swapped riders and for once she hadn't galloped off into the distance as she had been more focused on swaddling herself in her cloak as the skies opened.

The Dunmer smiled strangely, as if she had been anticipating this question for years. "The gods of Cyrodiil are different to the gods of Morrowind, and as a priest I suppose you should know a thing or two about the religions of both. I can't say that I believe in aedra because we can't see them and we never experience their powers and, let's face it, they never appear in our time of need. However Daedric Lords are real - you might think that I say this just because I'm from Morrowind - and I know you might not believe this for three reasons. Reason one is that you're a priest of the Nine so you think they're great or omnipotent, or some other garbage. Reason two is that you're an Imperial so you will know next to nothing about Daedric Lords. And reason three is that daedra worship is frowned upon in Cyrodiil so... well, just so."

"You're wrong," Martin whispered. He smirked up at her, chuckling softly. "It may surprise you to learn that before I was a priest of the Nine, I was a daedra worshipper for several years..."

Idari was shocked. She stared at him and didn't notice the low hanging branches across the road until they whipped her in the face. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment and she pulled her hood a little lower over her face, sorely tempted to ride away. To his credit, Martin did little more than snigger to himself. "Daedra worshipper, eh?" she replied, trying to sound cynical and mysterious despite the circumstances. "Which one? Azura?" She supposed that Azura was probably one of the more wholesome Daedric Princes. "And why would you stop and convert to the Nine? It seems a huge leap to convert from believing in something real and tangible to something that is completely imaginary."

"I thought the same thing when I was younger. I grew up on a farm near Kvatch, and got taken to the chapel in town every other Sundas. I was a child, and I found it the most boring part of my week. When I was old enough to leave home, I looked up Daedric Shrines in Cyrodiil in some book and set off, more out of curiosity than any form of belief. Eventually, I became a Sanguine worshipper and for a couple of years everything was good, I had found a place that I felt I belonged. That is, until I was given the Sanguine Rose. Things went wrong from there. We got in over our heads. People died. My friends died. I turned my back on the Daedra, gave the Rose back to Sanguine. Perhaps I decided that they were just a little too real. I didn't want that power for myself. The Nine suddenly seemed more appealing, and I was drawn back to the chapel of my youth..." He sighed heavily. "And you, Idari? Do you worship a particular Daedric Prince?"

Idari shook her head. "I was intrigued by Mephala for a while, but then my brother was killed and I packed up and left Morrowind behind me. After that, religion seemed unimportant..." Suddenly a rogue thought crossed her mind. "So, if you were a Sanguine worshipper for several years that would explain why Jauffre lost track of you."

"I was... being tracked?" the heir replied, feeling confused. "I don't think you ever told me anything about this Jauffre. If they knew where I was, why would they have left me in that chapel for so long?"

"How did you think I found you in Kvatch? Did you think I just scoured every city in this damn province looking for a man I'd never seen? You vastly overestimate my patience and my dedication," Idari replied, and she laughed mirthlessly. "Jauffre was the man who gave you to your 'parents'. He's a Blade, probably a long retired one considering he looks about five hundred years old, and he sent me to retrieve you. From what I gather he's actually the Grandmaster of the Blades, though he doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of it since he let the Emperor die and didn't even seem to be aware that I had that fancy jewellery in my pocket for over a month."

Idari dug her heels into the horse's flanks and the animal took off at a gallop. She was tired of talking. Martin tried to keep up with her at a jog, but soon realised that he would never be able to. He slowed to a walk and watched her rush towards the large buildings that he could see through the trees. The forest wasn't thick in this area, but the canopy blocked out most of the sunlight and the majority of the rain that was beginning to tail off. It was mid-afternoon and the heir considered a casual stroll through the trees, a far cry from the horrors he had been experiencing at Kvatch for the past month. He thought back to the people that he had known, who had died or been left behind in the wreckage of a city he'd vowed to give his life to. He only hoped that as Emperor he would be able to protect those people from anything like that ever happening again.

Screams echoed through the forest, shattering the peace. Martin froze. A shiver ran up his spine, visions of fire and death flashing before his eyes. He staggered slightly, leaning heavily against a tree for support. All the things he'd seen, all the things he'd done, came flooding back to him. His thoughts raced, he struggled to breathe and he felt his heart pounding in his chest. "Get to the priory," he told himself aloud. "Just get to the priory." But as the screams of his friends in Kvatch echoed through his head, he wasn't sure that he would be able to.

Idari also heard the screams, and she had dismounted the horse before it had even slowed to a stop.

She was surprised to see an assassin in the same red robes and bound armour as those she had seen in the Imperial Prison on that fateful day. She wondered if they had followed her here, even after she had been so careful to look for them when she brought the Amulet, even after she had disappeared for over a month. It didn't matter now.

One of the priests she had seen sleeping during her previous visit was sprawled on the ground in a glistening pool of his own blood. A deep gash had sliced him from shoulder to navel. She saw other priests hiding and running, screaming for their lives. The assassins picked them off as they ran, but a few looked like they might escape. Some of the other, younger priests seemed to be fighting back against the attackers with old, low quality and poorly maintained weapons, and the Dunmer from the stables was savagely beating an assassin down with a repair hammer. Bodies littered the ground, but even though she looked for Jauffre she could not see him amongst the dead. Idari assumed that he had hidden and fled with the rest of them. He was far past his fighting prime, and she was sure if he had set foot on the battlefield then he would certainly be dead already.

She slit the throat of an assassin who was bearing down on a wounded priest whose arm was hanging limply at his side, and as the attacker spluttered she twisted and blasted a second assailant with a bolt of lightning magic. The robed figure staggered and fell to the ground paralysed, groaning but alive. Idari drove the tip of her silver shortsword through the Imperial woman's neck, and took great satisfaction as the lights from her eyes dimmed.

Idari rolled her eyes as the injured priest slumped against the wall of the priory, his expression dazed.

"You again!" the stable Dunmer shouted at her. His hammer was coated in blood and brains from one or maybe more of the assassins, and his entire body was streaked red. "What are you doing here?"

Idari stalked towards him. "Jauffre. Where is he?" she demanded. She looked around for more of the robed assassins, but any that remained were either dead or had fled into the priory.

"Brother Jauffre was in the chapel when we were attacked. I don't know what became of him. They killed Prior Maborel and everyone was screaming, I-I lost track of everyone..."

"Right." Idari rolled her eyes. For all she knew, Jauffre would be dead in the chapel, slumped up against a wall skewered on a candlestick. She looked around the priory courtyard and suddenly she realised that she had left the heir to the throne alone in a forest overrun by assassins and he had yet to show up. "Martin!" she shouted through the trees. If she took a few steps to the side, she could see him leaning against a tree maybe one hundred metres back down the hill. "Martin!" She tapped a foot impatiently, waiting for him to finally decide to catch up.

Martin took several moments to tear himself away from his tree support and stagger towards the priory. When he arrived Idari noted that he seemed out of breath. She wondered why, given he had barely exerted himself, but she brushed it off as nonsense. She pressed an ear against the chapel door. It sounded like there was still fighting going on inside. "You have to stay here," she told the heir. She gestured at the stablehand with her sword. "You will watch him," she commanded the Dunmer. "This man is of huge significance to Tamriel, and you will watch him. If he dies, on your head be it, not mine." She didn't wait for him to respond. "Try and stay out of sight. If that doesn't work, kill them."

Martin nodded. Idari saw that he had a small knife in his belt, but she doubted that he would use it in his own defence if they came to kill him. She wondered if he was really worth all the effort it was taking to save him. "Good luck," he whispered as though the words were stuck in his throat. "I know you don't believe in the Nine, but I think that they will watch over you. They smiled on you at Kvatch, and if you don't accept their blessing... accept the blessing of a grateful man." He turned away and crouched beside the injured priest, a grim expression on his face.

Idari frowned, but somehow his words made her stop and think about something more than herself for the first time in months. She shook it off as she pushed on the chapel door. It was stuck, wedged against something on the other side. She gave it a kick, and then another, throwing her weight against it and finally, just as she was getting frustrated, whatever was blocking her path shifted just enough for her to slide her small frame through the gap.

The chapel was a bloodbath. Bodies were slumped against the pews and across the floor. Most of them were priests, but Idari saw a head without a body at the end of a gruesome trail which did not belong to any of them. Near the lectern, Jauffre was fighting with three assassins in bound armour simultaneously and somehow managing to hold his own. The sword he was wielding was as long as Idari was tall but it seemed light as a feather in the elderly Breton's practiced hands, the deadly sharp blade blocking every blow from their dull summoned maces. A flick of his wrists and Jauffre sliced through one man's armour as though it was no thicker than parchment. The bound equipment vanished as he died, and the Blade had already pirouetted to slice off the hand of a second assassin at the wrist as they clumsily attempted to strike at him. The third assassin circled around, landing a blow on Jauffre's upper arm as he attempted to manoeuvre out of the restricted battlefield, stumbling on a corpse near his feet. Idari sprang into action finally, vaulting over an overturned pew and casting a powerful fire spell that engulfed the third assassin in a ball of flames. He screamed, the terrible smell of burning flesh filling the small chapel. Jauffre rounded on the final assassin. She had lost a lot of blood from the stump that had once been her hand, and she barely reacted when the Blade pointed his massive sword at her throat. "Who sent you?" he demanded. She was curled up against a bloodstained pew in shock, facing away from the door.

The assassin smiled sinisterly, and twitched her red hood off of her face to sneer at him. "I serve only my Lord Dagon."

"What is the name of your organisation?"

She said nothing. Blood ebbed from her severed hand and she looked pale and ill.

"She won't tell you anything useful," Idari called as she scrambled over more pews. The assassin seemed surprised to hear another voice in the chapel and turned around to find her, but Jauffre didn't once avert his gaze from the crippled woman. "She's trying to be a martyr and die for her cause, and can we really deny her?" She cast a spell that pulled the woman from the floor with a jerk. "Shall I finish her for you?"

Jauffre finally turned to Idari, staring her down despite the burning desire for blood in her eyes. "Did you find him?" he asked softly. He didn't seem bothered that the assassin might overhear something important.

"This is the wrong time to discuss this," the Dunmer replied. She approached the suspended assassin, who looked like she was minutes away from losing consciousness. "Where I come from assassination is legal," she whispered in the ear of the assassin. "It seems that you should probably have taken up residence in Morrowind instead of Cyrodiil. Tell your master in the Void that next time He tries to topple a dynasty, he should make sure that I am nowhere nearby. Because I will do everything in my power to make sure that he never succeeds." She slit the assassin's throat with her Blade of Woe, some of her blood spilling onto Idari's black armour. The Dark Elf let her drop to the ground as she died, fear finally flickering behind her hard Imperial eyes as they glazed over in death.

"Did you find him?" Jauffre repeated with more urgency. He was leaning heavily against the lectern trying to catch his breath, his sword resting between his uninjured arm and the ground. His robes were stained with the assassins' blood and he looked almost sinister.

"See for yourself," Idari replied shortly. She clambered over the pews and corpses and left through the small gap she had managed to force the door open without explaining anything.

The monk followed her, trying to avoid stepping in the pools of blood that covered the chapel floor. He had to haul the body that had fallen against the door aside to fit through, but the burst of fresh air that filled the chapel was worth it. Outside he saw that the courtyard was littered with corpses of both friend and foe. His Prior had been killed in the attack, and most of the surviving monks were wounded or so traumatised that they would be reliving this for years. The stablehand Eronor was crouched over a brother who had fainted, a discarded hammer crusted with blood lying a few feet behind him. Idari was nearby, talking to an Imperial man in priest's robes who was leaning against the arch beneath the living quarters. Jauffre recognised him immediately. He was a spitting image of his father.

"The Amulet of Kings!" he gasped suddenly. In the attack he had been more concerned with staying alive than protecting the priceless artefact. Panic set in, and he took off towards the living quarters at a run.

Idari watched him run. The door was barricaded from the inside, but he managed to get it open with a couple of swift kick and disappeared inside. The Dunmer was content to simply watch him. She considered her part in this over, plus a favour for saving his life in the chapel. When Martin took off after him, she groaned. Now she had to follow. Even if Jauffre could handle himself in combat, she doubted that the priest would be able to, and she doubted if there was any way she was going to be able to leave this place if she took even a step inside that building.

She jumped over the remains of the chair that had been against the door and took the stairs two at a time, reaching the top at the same time as Martin. In Jauffre's study she had expected to find him again at his desk, but instead he had turned into a room that she had not seen before. It seemed to have been hidden behind a bookcase, hardly the most elusive of hiding places. The Blade was frantically rummaging through a drawer, turning over papers as though there was nothing more important than whatever he was searching for.

"The Amulet of Kings is gone!" he exclaimed in horror. He pulled out the drawer he was searching through and overturned it, scrabbling through the contents one last time on the ground.

"Oh great! And after I went to all that trouble to bring it to you..."

He sighed heavily, cradling his wounded arm against his chest. He straightened before he spoke. "But all is not lost," he continued sadly. "You have found Martin and he still lives. That in itself is worth far more than the Amulet of Kings. We must take him somewhere more defensible than here." He took a few steps out of the hidden room and looked Martin up and down. "We will go to Cloud Ruler Temple, a place where a dozen men can hold against an army." Jauffre turned back to Idari. "You have proven your worth, and if I could I would release you from our services, but I must ask you to help us search for the Amulet of Kings. It is beyond essential that we retrieve it."

"Who said I would be sticking around?" Idari replied indignantly. "I found your heir. Why should I now find the Amulet that you lost? I had it for over a month and then you have it for a week and it’s gone again!"

"Idari," Martin said. He sounded calm, but she could see the pain in his eyes. "You promised that you would help me. It was you who made me realise that I could not fight against my own destiny back in Kvatch. Please, accompany us to Cloud Ruler Temple. I need your help now. Help us find the Amulet of Kings and I will release you from this service myself, in whatever capacity I have as Emperor."

The Dunmer smiled. "See, he asks nicely,” she said to Jauffre. “Tell me then, where exactly is Cloud Ruler Temple?"

"In the Jerall Mountains, a short distance north of Bruma."

She scowled. "Are you being serious? Bruma? I can't go to Bruma. I need to be in Cheydinhal in two weeks’ time. Bruma? You want the Emperor to freeze to death or something?” "Well, I suppose that if you have other plans then we will have to leave immediately" Jauffre stated. "We might even reach Cloud Ruler Temple in time for you to return for your prior engagement." He sighed, massaging a temple and walking towards his desk. "If you happen to have time, there is a lead you should follow up on in the Imperial City. Look for Baurus when you arrive. Based on the reports I have received, you should remember him."

"I refuse to be your messenger," Idari growled angrily. She had crossed the room with a dagger in her hand and slammed it down hard into the Blade's desk. Jauffre didn't react beyond raising his eyebrows and shuffling documents into a pile, but she heard Martin flinch in panic behind her. "If you so desperately need someone in the Imperial City then you send one of your precious Blades, not me."

The monk was pushing important papers into a satchel with his one good arm when he finally looked up. "You and Baurus are the only survivors of what happened in the Imperial Prison, and therefore the only witnesses. I want the two of you on the ground together. Anything you saw or heard could be relevant. That is why I cannot send my Blades. It has to be you."

Idari glared at him. "I am not your messenger," she hissed. "And I will not jump to your beck and call because you think you hold some power over me."

Martin sighed, trying to prevent himself from spiralling into another panic attack. "Stop arguing," he said, more of an order than a request. The pair looked at him, falling silent. "Unless the two of you can put your differences aside, we might as well consider this the end of Tamriel as we know it. I don't ask much of you. Nothing more than my father would have done while he was alive. Idari, you will accompany us to Cloud Ruler Temple and then you're free to go to Cheydinhal for whatever business you have planned. Then, I ask you to go to the Imperial City. Your assistance would be invaluable, and the request that you help is not as unreasonable as you make it out to be. You aren't carrying a message. You are helping. You promised to help me."

He turned to the Blade. "Jauffre, please do not treat this woman like one of your Blades. Be aware that, unlike them, she is not here of her free will but rather because of circumstances surrounding my father's death. She doesn't have to help us. Everything she has done so far is above and beyond what one would expect of an exonerated criminal. I suggest you treat her accordingly, with the respect she deserves. For the time being, I ask only that the two of you find a way to resolve your differences and cooperate, and if you cannot cooperate then I simply request that you do not allow your bickering to interfere with matters of such importance again."

"As you wish, sire." Jauffre turned his eyes to the floor, his documents momentarily abandoned. Idari refused to offer any kind of verbal response.

"Please, call me Martin. I have yet to fully come to terms with my new title, and I would prefer to remain Martin the Priest for as long as I can."

The Breton looked up. "As you wish. Though, once you are officially declared the new Emperor, the etiquette of the Blades demands that we call you by your appropriate title." Outside the living quarters, the Dunmer Eronor was still fussing over the now unconscious Brother Piner. He had washed the blood from his hands but his rough tunic was still stained crimson and there were smudges on his face from where he had tried in vain to clean himself. Idari woke the monk with a shrill whistle and Jauffre, though he disapproved of her methods, gave Piner a healing potion to get him back on his feet after drinking a very basic version for the pain in his injured arm.

Idari's paint horse had spooked and run, but she could see it milling about the forest now as if nothing had happened. The pathetic thing was probably too stupid to flee properly, she told herself. Eronor gifted Martin a paint horse from the stables that he said had belonged to the Prior before his death. It was the least they could do to assist the new Emperor, and they had little need of it with so many graves to dig.

"I doubt the assassins will return. It was me they were looking for," Jauffre told them as he pulled himself up onto his bay stallion. "But alert the Chorrol guard to this attack and stay vigilant. If they do return, please feel able to flee. Your lives are worth more than anything remaining here. I am truly sorry to have brought this much death upon you." The ride north was swifter than the ride from Kvatch had been, and the trio made good time. The Orange Road wound along the northern edge of the Great Forest and there was little of note to spark a conversation. Jauffre took the lead, and Idari wondered if now was the time to slip inside an Ayleid ruin and escape these responsibilities while she still stood even the slightest chance. She stayed, though she didn't know why.

On the third day the Orange Road met the Silver Road and they could see Bruma in the fog in the distance. Idari shivered. Her leather armour did little to protect her from the cold rolling down from the Jeralls and her cloak was still sodden from the rain. Jauffre offered her a replacement that he had packed, but she refused it. She tried to warm herself using magic, but her skills lay in offensive spells rather than restorative magic and her attempts were futile.

In Bruma the snow was falling thickly, and it had already reached Idari's ankles before Jauffre announced that it was too dangerous to make the final ascent to Cloud Ruler Temple in this weather. They stayed the night in a tiny inn near the east gate, and Jauffre paid for a small meal for all three of them. Nord cuisine disgusted Idari, but she managed to stomach a few mouthfuls of the bubbling brown goo to keep herself warm. She tried to sleep that night, her first time in a proper bed since she left the sanctuary, but she found herself kept awake by the cold and struggled to drift off. It felt like it had been days since she last slept and her body cried out for rest, but her mind raced and kept her awake. By the time she had finally fallen asleep, she was woken by Jauffre hammering on the door of her room shouting about a break in the weather and the need to set off immediately. They rode their horses from the east gate to the north gate of Bruma and started up the mountain. Idari couldn't imagine what could possibly drive the Blades to base themselves in the fortress high up the mountainside. She supposed that it would be defensible, but if it wasn't even possible to approach the temple in poor weather she wondered how useful it would be as a centre for operations. The path twisted sharply and they were forced to dismount for their final approach to Cloud Ruler Temple. Beneath a foot of snow the rocks were slippery and treacherous, and Idari's paint horse struggled for footing more than once.

Cloud Ruler Temple was built between two steep cliffs of the Jerall Mountains, and the stone walls rose up at least twenty feet into high watchtowers. Jauffre called up to the sentries to identify himself and for several minutes they were left standing in the snow before the huge wooden gates were pushed open and they were allowed inside. A huge flight of stairs cut through the middle of the fort. The stairs were slippery and coated with snow, but the Blades were in the process of shovelling sand and grit over them. Idari struggled to get her horse up to the temple itself. She didn't know why she was bothering to drag the stupid animal up with her since she was intending to leave immediately, but it struck her as almost cruel to leave it out in the snow. Even for her.

They stabled their horses. The garrison seemed almost deserted of Blades. Only two soldiers sat up in the watchtowers, and less than five were stationed around the courtyard. Idari wondered why Jauffre was so certain that such a small force could stand against the assassins if they came in numbers. She shivered against the cold as she watched two of the Blades huddled around a fire trying to warm their hands and pulling their cloaks around them. Jauffre led Martin and Idari through the central doors into the main hall and told them to sit while he gathered the Blades to meet the new heir.

"Thank you, Idari," Martin murmured while the two of them sat alone in the hall. A small fire crackled in a grate at the far end of the room, and the Dark Elf sought to get as close to it as possible. "I do appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to accompany us here. I will find a way to repay you for all you have done for me, if you would let me."

"Don't bother." If she moved any closer to the fire, her hair would catch alight.

The heir shifted anxiously, as though the fire worried him. "Then at least let me give you a warm cloak for your trips here in future..."

"I have a cloak," she snapped. "I just wasn't expecting to get dragged back to Bruma so quickly."

Martin sighed. "Then take my horse. I notice yours is quite worn out, and I wouldn't want you to be slowed down any more than you already have been."

"I said I don't need your help, Martin."

Jauffre returned with a small contingent of Blades and they filed into the hall to surround the fire. Martin stood to greet them, and Jauffre introduced him as the Emperor's only surviving heir. Idari sighed as the Blades saluted him and tried to shake his hand. She didn't rise until after Martin had finished speaking and had been escorted towards the quarters he would be staying in. She knew that this was never a world she wanted to be drawn into.

She was only steps from the door when Jauffre called her name from across the hall. She flinched to hear him use her name, but she supposed he had learned it from Martin. Her shoulders fell as she turned to face him. "I need to leave."

"I know," the Breton replied. "I have come to tell you that you are welcome to stay in Cloud Ruler Temple if you are ever in the area. I don't trust you, but Martin does and it would be remiss of me to turn you away after the assistance you have provided."

"Martin shouldn't trust me," Idari whispered. "I will only let him down." She thought, perhaps, that this was the time for a witty comeback, but her heart was heavy and all she could think about was getting as far away from here as possible. All the pomp and ceremony reminded her of home and made her uncomfortable.

Jauffre looked her up and down. "Of course," he said. "You're an assassin. Dark Brotherhood, I would wager, though I admit at first I had you pegged as Morag Tong, especially when you spoke of legal assassination back in the chapel. It was against my better judgement that I sent you to find Martin. I thought it just as likely that you would stab him in the back on your journey to Weynon Priory, but I had nobody else to send and the task was too urgent to delay." He nodded slowly to himself as he drew an Akaviri katana from a scabbard on his belt and offered it to her hilt first. "You have surprised me," he admitted solemnly. "And while I don't yet trust you, I feel that I must apologise for my actions at the Priory. Despite your words, you have done everything that was asked of you, however delayed. I will not underestimate you again."

Idari chuckled mirthlessly. "I was Morag Tong, once. It didn't agree with me. Too legal." She pushed away the proffered blade. "I will not join the Blades." She turned to leave the hall, walking towards the stables.

"I wouldn't dream of asking you to join us," Jauffre said. "As I said, I don't trust you, and I will not have Blades whom their Grandmaster does not trust." He followed her. "No, this is merely a reward for your assistance. I am happy to accept the help of an assassin, if it means we will be able to catch whoever killed the Emperor and bring them to justice. Please, accept this reward as a sign of understanding between us."

She saddled Martin's horse, a paint mare from Weynon Priory. If Jauffre objected to her taking this horse instead of her own stolen nag, he said nothing. "I want you to understand this," she said as she started to lead the horse down the long flight of stairs. "There is no understanding between us. I don't need your charity. I don't need your assistance, or your help. I will not accept that blade because you think you need to give me something to appease your conscience about sending an assassin to find the Emperor's heir when you couldn't go yourself, or if you feel guilty for losing the Amulet of Kings." She thought about mounting the horse and riding down the mountain path, but decided against it. "The person you want to offer that blade to is a hero, and me? I'm quite the opposite."

"Martin believes that that remains to be seen. I, for the moment, am undecided." Jauffre sighed heavily. "Should you find yourself in the Imperial City, visit Luther Broad's Boarding House in the Elven Gardens District, and speak to my agent there. He will be out of his official uniform, but you should remember him since he survived the Imperial City Prison with you. Try to be discreet. Despite the circumstances, his reports speak highly of you."

"The Redguard," Idari muttered to herself. She walked the horse part way down the slope, and Jauffre continued to follow her. "I can't promise I'll look in, but if I'm in the area I might see what is happening. I warn you, though; I am rather busy at the moment. Everybody I meet seems to be demanding services from me. Fetch this, fetch that, kill them, frame them. I can't promise that I will be in the Imperial City, and I can't promise that I will be willing to do your dirty work for you. I'm sure that you of all people don't want to be relying on the assistance of an assassin." She stopped walking and mounted the horse finally. "And keep Martin alive. Imagine my surprise when I return from fetching him, only to find that you yourself were still capable of holding your own in battle."

"Was that a compliment?" Jauffre laughed heartily. He was standing up to his ankles in snow, still wearing only his bloodstained monk's robes. Idari wondered why he hadn't let her go yet.

"Don't push your luck," she replied. "Either way, I am required elsewhere. See that your Blades do a better job of protecting this Emperor than they did with the last."

Idari galloped down the remains of the mountain path at a faster speed than Jauffre would have considered safe. She was bent low over the horse's neck as she rode around the walls of Bruma and sped off to the south. The Grandmaster watched her go before setting back up the path towards his stronghold. When he had first retired, he had almost hoped that he would never have to set foot back here again except to induct his successor to the position. The frigid wind whipped through the mountains and chilled him to the bone. He was too old for this now. His wounded arm ached painfully and his footfall slowed as he reached the gates of Cloud Ruler Temple again. He disliked his hand being forced to trust this assassin, but what she had said was true. His Blades had failed Uriel Septim, and failed in their duty of protecting his family. Jauffre was determined that the Blades would not fail in protecting their newest charge, the only surviving son of a man who had once trusted him enough to show him an illegitimate baby and ask for his aid.

And if that baby's survival hinged on his trusting an assassin, then Grandmaster Jauffre was more than prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.


	6. Scheduled for Execution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turner completes his first contract for the Dark Brotherhood

### Chapter 6 - Scheduled for Execution

It was mid-morning and the Lake Rumare glistened in the sunlight. Turner wondered how he had come to be here on his first solo assassin's contract as he tried to admire the glow of the water. He kept wondering what his parents might think if they could see him now and he was sure that they would be disappointed to learn that they saved him from slavery so that he could turn to murder.

Telaendril and Gogron had each taken him with them on a contract before, to observe and to learn, but he still wasn't sure that he had the stomach for killing someone deliberately. Something about ending a person's life didn't sit right with him, however much the victim supposedly deserved their fate, or whatever they had done to paint the target on themselves. He didn't believe that he deserved the moniker of an assassin, and he was fairly sure that this contact was too high profile for a newbie assassin with his poor set of skills.

Maybe they had given him this contract because they hoped that he would get caught and they wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.

Turner had missed being near water. He hadn't had much of an opportunity to swim since he had left Anvil. He had tried to swim in the river running through Cheydinhal of a morning to relax, but the Captain of the Guard had quickly enforced an extortionate fine for swimming in the city and that had put an end to that. Part of him wanted to just run into the lake and forget about the real reason why he was standing here, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to escape the Dark Brotherhood no matter how far he fled from them. There was nowhere that he would be able to hide that they would have trouble finding him.

He forced himself to turn from the lake towards the dismal sewer grate behind him. Vicente had given him the key to get inside, and he fumbled through his leather pockets to pull it out and insert it into the lock. The grate opened outwards, and brown sewage slopped out over his feet. Once more, he found himself questioning whether it was worth going through this. It probably wasn’t, but his options were severely limited.

Turner had to crouch to climb through the pipe into the sewers and the nauseating smell was verging on overwhelming as he tried to hurry through it to somewhere where he could stand upright. The weight of the dagger on his hip was still unfamiliar, and he had yet to use it on a living target. Antoinetta favoured a knife for her murders and had spoken at great length about the terrible deeds she had committed with hers, but her horrifying enthusiasm had made Turner feel queasy and he had failed to pay attention to the majority of her tips. He knew that he would have to use it in the contract because he didn't have anything else that he could use to kill somebody. The thought made a lump form in his throat.

He really was in the wrong profession.

The sewer was dark and damp, and almost every surface from floor to ceiling seemed to be covered in a thick layer of mould and moss. Old pieces of furniture were smashed into unrecognisable shards all across the walkways, and more than once Turner felt he was about to slip from the bridges into the putrid fluid below. It didn’t look as though a live person had been down here in years, and he was certain that he was the first person to enter in the hopes of sneaking into the Imperial City Prison.

The Argonian had little trouble finding his way around the sewers as Telaendril had shown him a map of the sewers and taught him how to pick the basic locks on the gates that were blocking his way, but he struggled to navigate the tumblers and broke several of his lockpicks on his journey beneath the Imperial City. The creatures that were locked away within had grown large and fat on the scraps from the city above, and took umbrage on his assault of their home, but thankfully M’raaj-Dar had helped Turner come to grips with a very basic paralysis spell that he was able to use to get past them. He was sure it would have no effect on a larger animal, but it was probably not a good idea to add another potentially harmful spell to his repertoire anyway. Not after the last time…

His target was a Dark Elf named Valen Dreth who had been sitting in the prison for many months. He was due for release in a few days, and it was Turner's job to make sure that he would never see the outside of his cell. Vicente had promised him that this would be an easy contract; he even used the word 'pleasurable' to describe it. The prisoner would have a difficult time defending himself from behind bars, and Turner was sure that the most difficult part of killing him would be reaching him rather than the act of murder itself. Apparently he would receive a bonus if he managed to kill Dreth without killing any of the prison guards, which he was sure was not a particularly difficult ask. Even now, the thought of taking another unnecessary life turned his stomach. He certainly wasn’t intending to take more lives than was absolutely necessary.

The last room in the sewers was large and round. Inlet and outlet pipes flowing into the room had filled at least half of its volume with filthy water. The water level was low at this time of day, revealing a narrow stone walkway spanning the murky depths below. Turner stepped swiftly across this stretch of water-worn masonry, his footsteps splashing noisily as he hurried across, climbing the slimy stone steps that were set into the curved wall on the opposite side. There was a rotting wooden ladder at the top, leading to a tarnished metal trapdoor. Turner tested each rung of the ladder for weak points as he climbed. He pushed up and through the trapdoor, which tipped open without a sound on well-oiled hinges. It was only once he was through, slowly lowering the metal plate back into place that he noticed the Imperial Sigil etched into the steel surface. Turner wondered briefly why a trapdoor would be so readily accessed from the underside, but the remains of the sturdy lock - now smashed - explained enough to him. Though the idea of someone breaking into the Imperial Prison was low on the Guard's list of priorities, the Emperor's Assassination had clearly created a weak point that had yet to be remedied. Turner was relieved with the knowledge that he would not have to test his basic skills against such a complex locking mechanism. He set the hatch into its original place and slipped into the shadows.

Turner crouched beside the trapdoor for a long time, feeling as though his heart was about to burst out of his chest at any moment. He could hear guards in the corridor in front of him talking about the death of the Emperor. Even after more than a month they were still investigating, picking through everything in detail and trying to piece together what had happened to lead to Uriel Septim’s death. There was still time for him to turn around and run, still time to back out and come back when he was feeling more able to do this, but he knew that Valen Dreth could be released from his cell at any moment, and Turner was certain that he would not be able to track him down again after that. He put a hand on the wall and took a deep breath, the unbearable feeling of pins and needles spreading through his feet and forcing him to straighten his legs slowly. The moment he managed to whisper his invisibility spell, he felt safer in an instant and was able to drop back into his crouched position.

He crept forward, his Dark Brotherhood armour muffling most of the sound of his clumsy, fearful footsteps. The first two guards were too deep in conversation to notice him passing, and he reached the second room without any problems. Despite being invisible, Turner still felt the need to stay in the shadows. Every step he took felt like a step closer to lifelong incarceration, not that his life would last that long if he was caught down here. Imagine how the guards would react if they found an assassin so close to where the Emperor had been murdered? He tried not to think about it, trying to keep low like Telaendril had shown him and hug the wall to make use of the shadows thrown by the tall pillars.

Around the corner in a tiny side room he could see a captain pouring through evidence, bags under his eyes and muttering to himself. Turner could only assume that that room was where the Emperor had been killed, and it sent a shiver down his spine to be so close to where the assassination had happened. He tiptoed past the door. He wasn't good at sneaking, and he thanked whoever was looking out for him from Aetherius that he didn't get caught.

The guard on the catwalk had a lit torch in his hand, and the Argonian could have sworn he felt his heart stop when the guard looked straight through his invisible form as he paced between faded chalk outlines of bodies. He knew that he didn't have long before his spell dissipated, and when the guard turned away he climbed onto the catwalk and hurried through the door at the end as quickly and silently as he could manage. He exhaled, his knees shaking, an ear against the door until he could convince himself that the guard hadn't heard him and wasn't coming to arrest him or kill him.

Turner found himself in a tunnel so small that if he reached out he could touch both walls with ease. It was dark, but at the end he could see a dim light which he moved towards after renewing his invisibility spell. The tunnel opened out into an empty prison cell. The only light was filtered in through a barred window too high on the wall to look out of, and the only furniture in the room was a tattered bedroll and a tiny table that was pockmarked with scars. Straw and fragments of earthenware littered the floor, and the whole cell block stank strongly of urine. There was no prisoner. Vicente had told him that the day the Emperor was murdered, a prisoner had escaped through the tunnels, and it occurred to him that logically they could only have come from this cell. He wondered what had become of them. It didn't occur to him until some time afterwards that they were now the Hero of Kvatch.

The prisoner on the other side of the passage was sneering at a guard and shouting all forms of obscenities and insults stemming from his impending release and how he thought he ought to be treated better. He waited for what felt like hours for Valen Dreth to stop ranting and the guard for leave, trying to ignore the fragments of conversation and insults that he could hear and concentrate with his back pressed against the wall of the tiny cell. Eventually, the guard scoffed and walked away and Turner heard the sound of heavy boots moving away and a door slamming shut. He pulled out a lockpick and wrestled with the lock through the bars, snapping four picks before he got the cell door open because he wasn’t used to having to rely solely on his hands without being able to see what he was doing. He pulled the gate open as his invisibility spell wore off and he materialised in the corridor.

The Dunmer on the other side of the corridor was up against his cell door the minute he appeared, arms threaded through the bars and beckoning in spite of the chains between them. He looked old, his face was lined and scarred and his grey hair was slicked down with grease and dirt and his body was emaciated, but he looked tough and something about him seemed imposing and scary. Turner noticed that the manacles on his wrists were glowing softly as though they were enchanted. "Who are you, lizard?" he sneered through the bars. "That's not your cell." The Argonian tried to ignore him, but he carried on talking as though he enjoyed the sound of his own voice. "I do so miss the pretty girl who was across from me. Old Valen would have taken good care of her. I should have called in that favour and got us in a cell together before she ran away with the Emperor. Heard she's a big deal now."

"You shut your mouth, ashborn." It pained him to feel the racial slurs slip from his mouth so easily, but something about him set Turner's teeth on edge, and now that he had identified his target he honestly didn't feel so guilty about killing this horrible elf. Perhaps he was one person in Cyrodiil who truly deserved to die in prison.

"Hey, lizard, maybe you can do old Valen Dreth a favour and pick this cell door like you picked that one?”

"I told you to shut your mouth," Turner snapped. For a split second, he could empathise with Idari being angry all the time, but when his hand went to the dagger on his belt all of his anger dissipated to be replaced by fear.

He saw Dreth's face fall. "How dare you threaten me?" the Dunmer spat as he lunged a hand through the bar of his cell and grabbed Turner by the front of his armour. "You let me out of this cell so I can kill you myself, you fetid piece of Guar dung!"

Turner's first instinct was to pull away from Dreth's grip, but the Dark Elf was dragging him towards the bars of the cell, surprisingly strong for his age. He panicked, struggling against the pull of his target and fumbling to draw his knife from its sheath, the new assassin stabbed blindly through the bars. Valen Dreth blinked in surprise and let go of the Argonian's armour, staggering backwards, the dagger lodged in his gut as Turner’s blood-stained fingers slipped from its hilt.

"You stabbed me, you son of a pondscum whore!" The prisoner stumbled back against the wall, pulling the dagger out of his stomach and throwing it into the corner. He pulled his sack shirt over his head and tried to use it to stem the bleeding, but the redness spread faster than he could stop it, spreading down his trousers to drip on the filthy flagstones of the floor. "I hope you rot," Dreth spat, his breathing heavy as he groaned in pain. "Guards!" he tried to shout, but the sound died on his lips as it was smothered by a yelp of agony. He tried to lunge at Turner again but stumbled to the floor and stopped moving.

A dull throb in his side drew the assassin's attention to the fact that he had cut himself just above his hip when he had stabbed Valen Dreth and he started to panic. He had to get his dagger back in case the guards managed to follow it back to him. He couldn't think as he tried to pull lockpicks from his armour and dropped them all over the floor. He broke them all in Dreth's lock, one by one. "No. No, no, no," he whispered to himself. Blood was running down his thigh. "No!" Turner grabbed hold of the bars on the cell door to stabilise himself and forced himself to take a shaky deep breath. "Calm down." Vicente had impressed on him the need to calm down and think if a contract failed to go to plan.

He looked up and down the corridor. Turner knew that even invisibility couldn't help him remain unseen if he walked past the guards leaving bloody footprints everywhere, and with no lockpicks he wasn't sure that there was an alternative route out. He berated himself for failing to bring a healing potion with him, and if he managed to get out of here he promised himself that he would always carry one in the future.

At the end of the corridor he saw a table and chair where he had to assume the guards sat while on duty. He walked towards it, trying not to limp. On the table a pair of keys lay beside a dirty wooden bowl and spoon. Turner gasped and swept them up. He hoped that he was lucky enough that they would open Dreth's cell at the very least. "Yes!" he whispered triumphantly as the door squealed open.

Valen Dreth groaned. There was blood pooling around him and spreading across the stone floor. Turner felt his heart stop as his target tried to move towards him but slumped down, filthy nails scrabbling for purchase at the cracks in the floor. The assassin skirted the wall to avoid him and grabbed the dagger from the corner. He didn't know what to do now. A huge part of him wanted to just run and leave Dreth to die, but a nagging voice in the back of his head told him that a guard would find the Dunmer and learn his identity.

Dreth lashed at Turner, but his attack was weak and the Argonian easily managed to avoid his flailing arms. Turner kicked the Dark Elf in the stomach, eliciting a gasp of pain. "Why don't you just die?" the assassin hissed, more to himself than to Dreth. He couldn't wait to get out of this prison and never come back. He hated this career. He hated taking lives. He wished there was any way that he could back out without being killed.

He sheathed his knife as Dreth fell unconscious and shook his head. The blood on his hands made a lump catch in his throat. He didn't know why he felt guilty. If anybody he had ever encountered had deserved to die like this, it was this man, but Turner couldn't help the pit forming in his stomach. He stooped down as he heard the Dunmer gasp a final, ragged breath. Valen Dreth was dead.

He unlocked the prison door and cast his invisibility spell again before running as fast as he could from the Prison District, trying to stop his cut from bleeding all over the ground with his already bloodstained hand. He didn't stop until he had run into Lake Rumare and the water was lapping at his bleeding hip. Turner sat in the shallows for a long time, washing the blood from his dagger and trying to wash his wound, and when the dagger was clean he swam down to the lake floor to sit and reflect in his despair. It felt like hours passed before he moved again. He'd killed someone again, but on purpose this time. He still wasn't quite sure how he had got here. Even if Dreth had seemed to deserve it, he wasn't sure that he could ever forgive himself for what he had allowed himself to become.

The journey back to Cheydinhal felt like a blur. He rode a paint horse that Vicente had lent him for his first contract, though part of him had wanted to walk the whole way as punishment. The rain pelted into his back and whipped his face as he rode. He probably deserved it. His mind didn't stop spinning until he stumbled into the sanctuary and collapsed into a chair in the entrance hall, head in his hands. How did he get pulled into this?

Turner was unconscious before his body hit the stone floor.

When he woke he had been moved to his bed in the Living Quarters. It felt alien to him now, the feeling of warm and dry. Ocheeva and Vicente were sat nearby, talking quietly among themselves, but otherwise, the room was empty. Turner sat up abruptly, but his head spun once more and he flopped back heavily against the headboard of his bed.

"How do you feel, Brother?" Ocheeva asked warmly. She was standing over him now, and Turner wondered why she seemed so motherly when she was just an assassin like everybody else down here.

Vicente just smiled, his arms folded across his chest. "It seems that our dear Brother wasn't ready for his first solo kill," he said. "You are fortunate that Teinaava was in the Sanctuary to pick up your next contract for you. Our client would have been most put out if we had been late for their request."

"It is possible to occasionally take a break from work, Vicente," Ocheeva snapped. "I will deal with his contracts from now on. Go." She tried to shoo the vampire out.

"Despite..." Vicente waved a hand over Turner with disdain. "This. He carried out his first contract well, and I am impressed that he managed to sneak in and out of the Imperial Prison undetected. Come to my quarters when you wish to collect your payment. I think we'll make an assassin out of you yet."

Ocheeva handed Turner a vial filled with pink liquid. "You look like you could use a healing potion," she said, gesturing to the dried blood on his hip as she sat on the edge of his bed.

He upended the vial into his mouth. The taste was bitter and disgusting, and he grimaced as he felt the wound on his hip knitting itself back together until there was only a small scar. "Thank you," he whispered. His head was starting to clear, though he couldn't shake the feeling of guilt. He sat up again with more success. "I'm sorry."

"You aren't the first new assassin to have issues after their first contract. I have seen countless new Siblings just not come back, either jailed or dead or simply fleeing. You, at least, returned. Tell me how it went."

Turner sighed. He wasn't sure he was ready to relive that contract yet. “I just don’t think I’m cut out to be an assassin,” he started. "I didn't have any trouble sneaking in. I thought I would have done, but the guards were distracted, still investigating the Emperor's death and I managed to slip past while invisible. He was a disgusting man… but…” He regretted it. He truly, deeply regretted it.

Ocheeva seemed to understand his meaning. "I don't think anybody's first contract goes completely smoothly. Perhaps it would help if you find a way to kill that doesn't involve knives. If you would like, I have a contract which shouldn't involve any bloodshed. I was planning to give it to Antoinetta, but I believe that you would benefit more from it than she would. What do you say?"

"What do I have to do?"

"You have proven that you can be stealthy when needed. A warlord in Fort Sutch has recently taken ill and is kept alive only by a powerful medicine. Whoever ordered this contract wants it to look as though the warlord died of his illness, so you would simply switch his medicine for poison. You do not even need to be present when he finally dies. The only thing that is paramount is that you remain undetected. Do not be seen; do not attack any of his mercenaries. It is, perhaps, a simple contract, but the need for bloodshed is minimal and I believe it might be better suited to your... talents than the usual contracts that we are asked to carry out."

Turner dragged himself out from underneath the blanket, swinging his legs off the edge of the bed, and sighed heavily. "I think I could manage a poisoning," he said after a pause. He didn't know if he could manage it, but he knew that there was no way that he could start turning down contracts so early into his Dark Brotherhood career. He supposed that the choice was this or running away. "I will set off in the morning."

Ocheeva smiled. "Excellent, Brother. See me before you leave and I will give you the poisoned medicine." She stood to leave. "And be sure to see Vicente for payment on your first contract. Perhaps you will feel better about it once the coin is lining your pocket."

Turner finally managed to stand up. His armour was torn at his hip, but it didn't look like it needed fixing at the moment so he decided to leave it. The healed wound was uncomfortable, and he wished that he had had the sense of mind to take the armour off before he had passed out as the fraying leather kept irritating it painfully. He stood staring at the floor for a long time, lost in his own thoughts. He almost wished that he was still living in Baenlin's basement, however awful that situation had felt at the time. He wouldn't have found this new family, but he wouldn't be forced to murder people for money or fear for his life. He didn't belong here. Nobody in the sanctuary felt the same way that he did about killing, and he didn't think that he would ever be as casual about it as they were, even if he survived here for years and grew to be a master assassin.

Turner was convinced that the day that he killed somebody without remorse would probably be the day that he lost part of himself in the process, and he prayed that that day would never come.

He made his way down to Vicente's room and knocked gently on the door. It didn't open and he heard no movement inside so he turned and made the decision to come back later, walking back towards the entrance hall to force himself to eat and perhaps take a proper nap to shake off his fatigue.

The vampire appeared behind him and he practically jumped out of his skin, staggering against the wall for support. He stood there, gasping for breath as his heart pounded out of his chest. Turner couldn't understand how Vicente had managed to get behind him without him noticing. He hadn't even heard the door open.

"Sorry to startle you, Brother." Vicente chuckled darkly as Turner fought to regain his composure. "Sometimes I forget that a vampire's ability to remain undetected is not quite to everyone's taste. I will try to be more considerate in future." Something told Turner that he wouldn't.

"I uhh... I came about my reward for killing Valen Dreth."

Vicente beckoned him back towards his quarters. "Yes, I thought so. We were impressed that you managed to infiltrate the Imperial City Prison without killing a single guard. In addition to a monetary reward, we will also be giving you the Scales of Pitiless Justice, a powerful tool indeed."

Turner wondered what was so powerful about these scales that they were a fitting reward for committing murder. He didn't even want them, though he took what he was given. The money interested him more. He had never been rich and, even though it was a paltry sum, he knew that he was holding more money in his hands than he had ever held before. “Thank you,” he said, moving to leave.

"Brother, I have one last thing to offer you."

He stopped with a hand on the door. "I'm listening." Turner had no idea what else Vicente would want to offer him other than a contract, and he was fairly sure that he wouldn't be able to carry it out.

The Breton gestured for him to take a seat at the table. "As a vampire, I have the ability to pass on my... gift to whomever I desire," he began. Turner felt the pit forming in his stomach as he realised what Vicente was offering. "I know that we have only worked together for a single contract, and normally I would wish to work with a Sibling for far longer before offering my Dark Gift. However, I do believe that the perks of my... condition could only benefit you in your Dark Brotherhood career. Superior strength, speed and senses are hardly to be sniffed at, not to mention the increase in one’s ability to sneak. I understand that sneaking is not your strength, though I must reiterate that I am impressed that you managed to infiltrate the prison successfully."

"Become a vampire?" The words stuck in the Argonian's throat. He tried to see if there was anything in Vicente's expression that he could read, but he failed. The vampire had had a lot more practice concealing his emotions than Turner had had reading them. "I can barely deal with spilling blood and you expect me to drink it?"

"I do understand your apprehension. I was turned quite unexpectedly and, had it been offered to me when I was a mortal man, I am certain that I would have refused this gift. However, I assure you that the benefits of this condition far outweigh the disadvantages. If it puts your mind to rest, I can turn you in your sleep. You needn’t feel a thing.”

The Argonian's eyes widened. "I... would rather not, Brother." He was trying to sound diplomatic, but he only came across as scared. "At the moment I think my revulsion towards blood is enough to put me off drinking it. For the time being, I'm going to have to say no."

Vicente smiled, and his fangs were clearly visible beneath his upper lip. "Such a shame," he said. Turner couldn't tell whether he was angry or simply disappointed and the lack of clarification scared him a little bit. "Still, I shall allow my offer to remain open, should you change your mind in the future. As an Argonian, it is unlikely that you will be able to receive my Dark Gift in the usual, unplanned way, so I implore you to truly think about the benefits of my condition. The blood is an… acquired taste, but you will acquire it, I assure you."

Turner tried to think, but the only thing that came to mind was an inability to walk in the sun and spending his entire existence running from people who wanted to kill him. If he could have had improved strength and speed without having to be dead, he might have accepted, but as it stood, "No. I would rather not." He shook his head resolutely. In his head he made a note to not come down to see Vicente for a while. "I have a long journey to my next contract in the morning. I should get going."

Vicente nodded, and Turner couldn't tell if it was disappointment he heard in the vampire's voice when he said "Farewell, Brother." Suddenly he felt safer for the tenets.

He wondered how long Vicente had been a vampire, and how many countless Dark Brotherhood members he must have offered his gift to over the years. Turner didn't feel guilty for rejecting him, though he felt that perhaps he ought to have done. He couldn't think of anything that could be worse than living forever and watching people die by his hand the entire time. As an Argonian, he was immune to the disease that normally turned vampires, and he had hoped that that would be the end of it. Now, he wasn't so sure. It seemed that there was a way for him to be turned after all.

Turner went to Ocheeva's room to pick up the poisoned medicine for his contract after far too few hours’ sleep to prepare himself for his long journey. He didn’t know where Fort Sutch was, but the sanctuary matron was more than willing to point it out to him on a map, just off the Gold Road near Kvatch. He had heard of Sutch before when he had been living in Anvil, but the now-destroyed settlement was little more than folklore and the stuff of storybooks. Ocheeva told him that little remained besides the ruins of the fort that would have once been at the centre of the town.

He was sat at her table chewing on an apple when Ocheeva decided to change the subject. "Brother, I have decided that I will allow you to have access to the sanctuary via the well at the back of the house. We always make newer Siblings enter via the Black Door, however for ease the well is far better and draws less attention from the people of Cheydinhal." She held out a key to him. "Guard this key with your life. I do not have to explain to you how terrible it would be should the sanctuary be accessed by the City Watch. The Black Door protects us from curious souls, but the well is unfortunately completely unprotected save for the grate across it. Do not let anybody see you use it, do not leave the grating unlocked, and do not misplace the key. Can you do this?"

Turner nodded, and snatched the key from her hand. In his haste to take it he lost his grip and all but threw it across the room, sighing as it dropped to the floor with a metallic ring. Ocheeva looked at him quizzically, as though she was already questioning her decision to give it to him. He trudged across the room and picked it up, tucking it into one of the many pockets of his armour.

"You're going to need the key to get out of the sanctuary," he heard Ocheeva mutter in a low voice. He wondered if there was anything that he could do that would make her demand the key back, and then he realised what she was trying to tell him.

Turner rummaged through his pocket to try and pull the key back out, walking out of the Sanctuary Leader's room and heading towards the ladder. He had seen some of the others use this entrance when he had been training, but they had always made him use the door. It felt like a privilege that he hadn't earned by killing only one man but perhaps they were just allowing him to pick up exactly where Idari had left off.

He climbed the ladder, though he was tall enough that he only had to climb three rungs before he could reach the grating. Hooking his arm around the top rung, he reached up awkwardly to unlock it. The well cover was designed to look realistic and detract attention from the sanctuary below, but it also made climbing up from inside more difficult than Turner had anticipated. He reached up for a handhold as he tried to pull himself out, but the wood creaked threateningly under his weight and his trailing leg got caught in the rope as he climbed over the stone walls. He hopped back and forth as he tried to free his leg, but it only entangled him further. The others had made it look so easy.

Turner fell to the ground and his weight made the well cover creak and splinter, a chunk of wood tore away still tied to his foot. He stood up after he freed himself, muttering darkly as he locked the grating. He was tempted to never use that entrance again, and his face burned with embarrassment even though nobody had been around to see. In a vain attempt to disguise what had happened, he threw the shards of wood behind the abandoned house and pulled his hood low over his face.

"Never again," he whispered to himself as he dug his hands into his pockets and rounded the back of the abandoned house.

"Well, even I have to admit that that was hilarious." Turner jumped in surprise, snapping around to see a familiar Dunmer leaning against the door of the abandoned house nonchalantly. "I honestly don't know what possessed me to think that you were assassin material."

"Why are you even here?" Turner gasped. Of all the people in Cheydinhal who could have seen his failure, she was probably bottom of the list. "I thought you were meant to be reporting to the Speaker!"

Idari pushed herself off of the door and sauntered towards him. A couple of guards were snooping around the well, but she was confident that they would never find or reach the Sanctuary. "Lucien can wait," she said. She pushed a stray strand of brown hair out of her face and tucked it back up into her hood. "Honestly, I came back to see if you had died yet. I'm impressed, even if at the current rate you'll be dead by sundown." Turner didn't think she was impressed at all.

He glared at her. "Why would you even care if I was alive?" he spat under his breath. "Nothing was stopping you from killing me in Bruma, and nothing is stopping you now. If you want me dead so badly, you can kill me yourself." It might have been a mercy if she did, with the way his life seemed to be spiralling out of his control at the moment.

The Dunmer frowned at his outburst. This was probably not a conversation that they should have been having on the streets of Cheydinhal. "Just don't give me any more reasons to kill you and I will allow you to live," she whispered after a long pause. He was one of the few people in this province that she didn't want to stab in the throat whenever she saw, and it was something that she didn't yet understand. "So have you been on any contracts yet?" she asked, beckoning him behind a different house.

Turner grimaced. Killing Valen Dreth was definitely a prominent low point in his life and he wasn't sure that she was someone to share that with. "Just one. I'm heading out to another one now, actually." He followed her behind the house. He supposed the warlord could wait a few more hours before he died. "I broke into the Imperial City Prison and assassinated a prisoner there."

"You broke in?" Idari was surprised that he had managed it. He wasn't the stealthiest Argonian that she had ever come across. Then again, she hadn't even noticed him when she had been in Baenlin's house and walked straight past him in the cellar. "I suppose you used the tunnels beneath the prison. Do you know what happened down there?"

"The Emperor was murdered there. The investigation is still happening but it’s all chalk outlines down there. Apparently a prisoner broke out and in the process the Emperor was killed. I don't know if the prisoner killed him or not." He didn't really want to be discussing this with her. She was the reason he was in this mess.

"That's not what happened..." The Emperor was probably the only person she would have refused a contract for if she was offered it. She had respected the man. She wouldn't have killed him. Her eyes widened slightly as she realised that Turner hadn't worked out whose cell he had emerged in, and as she realised who he must have been sent to kill. She almost regretted not being able to take that contract herself.

"And how would you know?"

"I-I," Idari stammered, uncharacteristically lost for words. "I don't think that the Hero of Kvatch would do that." Maybe she wasn't ready for him to know who she was just yet. "She just doesn't sound like a person who would be willing to kill the Emperor."

“The Hero of Kvatch?”

“They’re the same person.” Turner had forgotten that, though only because he found it so hard to draw the connection between a criminal and a hero.

"No, I suppose you’re right," Turner sighed. "She's a hero. I suppose it doesn't really matter what she was in the prison for. She's a hero now."

A hero... The one thing Idari felt like she wasn't. All she had done was close that gate. Anybody with a little skill could have done it. If he wasn't so worried about the safety of the townsfolk, Idari was certain the guard captain could have easily closed it with his men, but he had refused to leave what was left of the town unguarded. She didn't deserve the title Hero of Kvatch, and she was glad that someone could stand right in front of her and not realise who she was. "I'm sure she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Something about Turner made her feel vulnerable, and she hated him for it, but she was inexplicably drawn to him. Even from the first moment, he had stepped on her cloak, she knew that she wouldn't kill him, despite wanting to with every fibre of her being.

"Be that as it may," the Argonian said, tapping his foot and looking over his shoulder. "Not just anybody would have done what she did, especially for a town of strangers. When I was stuck in Bruma she inspired me, but what has she done since? Who has she saved? I hope she comes back and people follow her example. I wish I could. I used to tell tales of heroes, and now I'm a villain myself." He walked away from her, not giving her a chance to reply.

Idari stared after him, frowning. There were so many things she wanted to say but she couldn't find the words. Nobody walked away from her. She had fashioned herself as a figure to be feared after she had left Morrowind, so that nobody would ever walk away from her again. The change that she had seen in Turner since she had first met him was extreme, in only a couple of weeks. He had surprised her. The day that they had met, she had thought that he wouldn't even survive his training and now, after only one contract, the difference was night and day.

She wanted to hate him. She really did.


	7. Permanent Retirement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Idari can begin her work as Silencer, Lucien has another job for her - one that will bring her back into conflict with an old foe

### Chapter 7 - Permanent Retirement

Lucien Lachance had fought hard against the instincts that told him to go out and track down his latest Silencer. He knew that it would not take him long to find her, but the Listener had forbidden him to get involved in the affairs of the Blades at this time. His sources told him that she was seen leaving Bruma a few days earlier, but she was late and he was impatient.

The groans of the Dark Guardians were a constant hum, and for the most part he was able to ignore them. Lucien sat at his desk, sharpening his dagger while reading some correspondence from the Listener. His room was dark and only lit by a few scattered candles, a pleasant enough place for him, but he longed to leave and feel the delight that only came from taking a life, before being trapped in here for so long took its toll on him.

But the Night Mother had instructed him to wait for her arrival, and even though he was not bound by the Five Tenets, he knew better than to disobey a direct order from the Night Mother herself.

The familiar sound of metal against bone echoed through the ruins and Lucien smiled. He pulled up his hood to cover his face and waited as the sounds drew closer to his sanctum, sheathing his dagger and cracking his knuckles one hand at a time.

The gate to his living quarters opened with a creak. He didn't use it himself, and its only real purpose was to keep the Dark Guardians away from him, but it was still responsive to the lever that controlled it even after months of disuse. Lachance stood as he saw his newest Silencer duck beneath the grating. She was bleeding. Blood was trickling down her arm from a gash at her shoulder, and down her leg from a puncture to her thigh, but she made no attempt to heal herself or cover her wounds.

"You're late," Lucien said. "I gave you two weeks, Mortha."

Idari scoffed. "Don't kid yourself, Lachance; you knew that I would be late. When you told me to offload that amulet in Chorrol, you must have known that I would be dragged into that garbage. Even after that, I can't believe that your people in Skingrad wouldn't have reported that I was in Kvatch, or your people in Bruma wouldn't have told you that I was stuck in a Blades fortress. You knew that. You sent me on an impossible task, and now you complain about my failure? You delude yourself." She glared at him as she crossed the room. She was trying not to limp, but she was clearly in pain.

Lucien already knew that he disliked her. There were people in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary who deserved the title of Silencer far more than she did, but on this matter his hands were tied. The Listener had told him – instructed him - to promote her to Silencer, taking away the control to which he was accustomed. Ordinarily, he was permitted to choose his own Silencer from the assassins under his command, but this one was a direct order from the Night Mother herself.

"I have a contract for you," he said. He didn't need to read the missive that he had been sent from the Listener. He probably knew it from memory now.

Idari rolled her eyes. "No, I thought I was here for a romantic candlelit dinner," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Tell me who you're sending me to kill and I will leave immediately." She needed to heal her wounds, but her pride wouldn't let her display that weakness in front of the Speaker.

"Sit." Lucien gestured to a chair and she took a seat reluctantly. He sat across from her, trying to read her emotions from her expression. "It is unconventional for an assassin to be promoted straight from Murderer to Silencer. The Night Mother is clearly impressed by you. Usually promotions are not handed down from the Listener directly." He leaned forward in his chair, steepling his fingers on the table. "I hear that the Night Mother has been watching you for many years. How old were you when you joined the Sadrith Mora chapter? Little more than a child, I hear."

"Do you have a point? Or were you trying to talk me to death?" She visibly suppressed a wince.

"I merely wished to impress upon you the unorthodox nature of your promotion to Silencer. Know that the Night Mother has been watching you for a long time, and that she has a very special contract for you to complete. I, however, have requested to send you on an alternate contract first, to test your loyalty to the Brotherhood in light of these unusual circumstances. The Listener thinks this sensible. I trust you have heard the name Adamus Phillida during your time with us?"

Idari's eyes narrowed. "The Imperial bastard who had me thrown into the Imperial City Prison to die? Of course I have heard of him."

"Good." Lucien nodded. "Then what I am about to tell you should bring you great satisfaction. Adamus Phillida has been a thorn in the side of the Dark Brotherhood for the majority of his forty year career with the Legion: interrupting contracts, killing family members... We have tried to eliminate him before, and thrice he has evaded us. He is a powerful man, and until recently surrounded by powerful associates. Now his years of service are coming to an end, and he has chosen to retire to Leyawiin. Or so he thinks. The Black Hand refuses to allow him this victory, and Sithis demands his soul as retribution. A message must be sent." Lachance stood and crossed the room to his desk. He drew out a thin box and a scroll of parchment and presented them to Idari. "For such a unique contract, the Black Hand has commissioned a unique weapon: the Rose of Sithis. It is enchanted to kill only one man, and as long as it finds its mark beneath his armour, Phillida shall be doomed to die the instant it strikes him."

"Fine. Do I get a bonus for killing him with the damn arrow?" Her skills with a bow were limited, but for a bonus she would certainly try. Anything to earn a few extra septims.

"No," Lucien grinned. "For this contract, Sithis does not care about the manner in which Phillida meets his end. Instead, you shall receive a bonus for sending the appropriate message to his successor. Take the finger that bears his signet ring from his corpse, and plant it within the desk of the new Commander of the Legion so that they know not to meddle with the affairs of the Dark Brotherhood. Do this, and you shall be accepted into the Black Hand as my Silencer."

"Fine. Although you made it pretty clear that I already had the job last time we spoke…" She hid the grimace as rising from her chair reopened the puncture wound on her leg. There was a ladder leading from Lucien's living quarters to the surface, and Idari sorely wished that she had known about that before she had been forced to fight through the Dark Guardians. "Phillida will die by my hand," she promised as she started to climb, her blood running down the ropes. "I will return when I am able. I have business to attend to in the Imperial City, and it will surely delay my departure."

Lachance rose from his seat as she climbed. "Mortha, you shall return as swiftly as you are able." As much as he would prefer she stay away from him for as long as possible, he knew that the contract the Night Mother had given her was urgent. "I have a gift for you, to aid you with your contract."

Idari was sat on the top rung of the ladder, pushing open the trapdoor with her uninjured arm. The movement in her wounded arm was restricted and she had planned to drink a healing potion the minute she was out of Lucien's sight, but now she was irritated that he was stopping her from leaving. "What now?" she snapped, looking down at him.

Lucien gestured to the trapdoor, and followed her out of the opening. His secret entrance was hidden within a hollow tree at the rear of the fort, and the Dunmer was fairly certain she could have found it if she had known to look for it. Her wounds were screaming to be healed but her pride wouldn't allow it. She even had a potion on her belt, but even though her hands twitched towards it, she couldn't bring herself to drink while in his presence.

"This is Shadowmere," the Speaker said as he showed her to his horse. "A fine horse. He has served me well, over the years. I present him to you now, as a gift. You would be hard pressed to find a steed in Cyrodiil that could match Shadowmere for speed or strength. Perhaps you might even return from killing Phillida within a reasonable time frame."

Idari was impressed by the horse, a stallion with a sleek obsidian coat and eyes that burned red like hers. In Shadowmere, she knew that she had found a creature that she could come to relate to. "Thank you," she said. It pained her that her thanks were sincere. "I should leave." She stroked the horse's mane and realised that she couldn't see herself being able to mount the animal before she took a healing potion. Her leg was feeling numb, and the first twinges of a headache showed her that she had lost too much blood to go without healing herself much longer.

"Listen, Mortha, it is imperative that you return from killing Phillida as quickly as you are able." Lucien regretted letting her take Shadowmere from him, but he understood the urgency of the situation better than she did. The Dark Brotherhood couldn't afford to lose many more assassins while she was away in Leyawiin. "The contract on Phillida's life already had to be changed to accommodate your lateness. Originally we would have had you assassinate him en route to Leyawiin. Do not delay any further than is necessary."

"I know that you must be worried about the traitor, Lachance. However, if it was truly essential that I return swiftly, you wouldn't have asked the Night Mother to allow me a different contract."

"Believe me, Mortha. If the traitor had not been active within the Brotherhood before you arrived in Cyrodiil, you would have been my top suspect." Ordinarily he would have chosen a Silencer that he thought he could work with. He was glad that, in future, he could communicate with her through dead drops and avoid direct contact.

Idari chuckled. She was more amused than offended that he would consider her the traitor in the Brotherhood. "Oh Lucien," she laughed. "You stand here and assume that you know everything about my past, and that I know nothing of yours. You stand here and assume that I am the Brotherhood traitor, when it could just as easily be you or anybody else. My money would be on somebody in the Black Hand, but who knows? Don't stand around making accusations that you cannot back up."

Lachance resented her for accusing a member of the Black Hand of being the traitor. The Night Mother would never allow someone with those intentions so close to her, and he trusted the Night Mother absolutely. However, he wasn't prepared to tell her what he knew. Not yet. "Just make sure you return as quickly as possible. Next time I will not be so forgiving."

The Dunmer struggled to pull herself up into the saddle after mumbling the quietest healing spell that she could mutter. It didn’t help much. Her wounded shoulder ached painfully as she swung her uninjured leg over Shadowmere's back. "I will return when I return. If this next contract is so important, I am sure you can find somebody else to take it from me."

"In ordinary circumstances, I would like nothing better than to do just that. Unfortunately, in this instance, the Night Mother requested you by name. It is most unorthodox." He would have preferred that it were so simple. However, even if the Night Mother had not specified her by name, there was only one other member of the Dark Brotherhood who could have been called upon for this particular contract, and Lucien did not yet have faith in their abilities. Despite how much he disliked his new Silencer, he knew that she, at least, had the skills to perform the tasks that she was set.

"Well, I would hate to disappoint the Night Mother," Idari laughed. Though if she was truly honest with herself, the Night Mother was not somebody she was willing to betray. "I will return when I am ready; however, I will attempt to be back as soon as I can." She dug her heels in and rode away.

As soon as she was out of Lachance's sight, she unstoppered the healing potion on her belt and downed the contents in one. The relief that she felt to have her wounds heal again was stronger even than her aversion to the foul tasting liquid. She was sure that her leg wound would leave a scar, but her shoulder would at least heal completely.

She stopped at the Cheydinhal Sanctuary to pick up supplies for her journey, including her cloak and a few more healing potions. She decided against taking a bow, since she would not receive a bonus for killing Phillida with the Rose of Sithis, but nonetheless she packed the arrow into her things, tucking it into a pocket that she had sewn into the lining of her cloak as she stitched up the tears in her armour. Idari thought about spending the night in the sanctuary, to get some proper rest after what felt like days that she had spent awake, but she decided against it. Lucien had made a point to emphasise that speed was of the essence, and so she set out towards Leyawiin by mid-afternoon.

On any other horse, the trip to Leyawiin would have taken her nearly the full two weeks that she had been allotted. On Shadowmere, however, the journey only took six days as she was able to stop only when she wanted to rest herself, rather than to feed, rest and water her steed.

By the time she came to stable Shadowmere in the Five Riders Stables, she was convinced that he was not a horse at all, but instead some kind of demon. Nothing else could possibly explain it. He never seemed to tire, and she never once saw him eat or drink, even when she stopped beside the river where the grass was lush.

Idari had never been to Leyawiin before but she already knew that she would never spend much time here. The city was surrounded by swampland on all sides, and almost all of the residents were Argonians or Khajiit. The smallest buildings in town were rough, little more than shacks, while the biggest were sturdy and expensive looking, enforcing an inescapable classism among the residents who made a home there. She paced around the city, circling the chapel and weaving between the huge, prominent guildhalls as she visited any place that she could imagine that Phillida would frequent, the inns and the barracks.

Phillida didn't appear for hours, but she recognised him immediately when he passed her as she sat feeling frustrated inside the castle walls. He had kept his Legion armour and continued to wear it as he swanned around, and something about that made Idari's temper flare. She thought about using the Rose to kill him right then and there, but she didn't want him to die instantly, she wanted him to suffer as she had suffered in the Imperial City Prison. Part of her even wished that locking him up for weeks was an option to her, but her schedule wouldn't allow it.

There was a man following him around who was also in armour, a bodyguard by the looks of him, and that angered Idari further. She supposed that she would have to separate them if she wished to assassinate Phillida, but it wouldn’t be difficult with the plan that was forming in her mind as she stalked them through the city.

She considered what she had to work with. She had stolen an Akaviri katana from Cloud Ruler Temple after seeing how formidable the weapon had been in Jauffre's hands. It was far smaller than the Grandmaster's had been, but she had still struggled to get it out undetected. She wondered if that was why Jauffre had offered her a sword before she left, so that she didn't have to steal one, but this one felt more like hers. Her shortsword was a familiar weapon, but she decided that the katana was a more fitting sword to use in Phillida's murder, with a sharper blade as intricate as his ridiculous gilded armour.

Idari swung the katana from side to side with her sword hand, testing the weight and the balance. It was a fine blade. It would make for an excellent murder weapon.

She sheathed the sword and slung the scabbard over her shoulder, over the top of her cloak. It was too long to hang from her hip. The cloth hood she pulled down low over her face. She didn't like fighting while wearing a cloak, but she knew that Phillida would recognise her leather armour immediately as symbolic of her membership of the Dark Brotherhood. Originally she had thought to change into civilian clothing while stalking her target, but she decided that being armoured was more important than blending completely into the crowd for this mission.

Adamus Phillida's bodyguard was a younger Imperial man, and he wore the chainmail armour of a member of the Leyawiin City Watch, minus the helmet. Idari watched him following his superior, never more or less than five steps behind. His weapons and armour were gleaming and well kept, but without the signs of wear and tear that would show he had put them to much use; Idari doubted that he had ever fought anybody of particular skill. He was a hindrance, nothing more, but she had decided that she wasn't going to kill the man for trying to do his job. It was so much more fitting for him to know and suffer for his failure.

She drew close to the pair as Phillida made his way into the Coast Guard Station slightly beyond the boundary of the city itself, and wrapped her hand over the bodyguard's mouth, casting the most powerful paralysis spell she could muster. He froze mid-step, and Idari was able to quickly shift his weight so that he was leaning against the wall of the station before he fell to the ground. He glared at her, unable to speak or even to look away as she stood over him.

The assassin grinned from beneath both of her hoods and touched a gloved finger to her lips before following her target inside.

The Coast Guard Station was little more than one room sectioned into several parts, and whoever lived here had left it cluttered with unwashed dishes, clothing and general rubbish, a far cry from the usual strict order of the Imperial Legion. Phillida was sat at a table with a book that he had yet to open, and he didn't look up when Idari closed the door behind her. She took a moment to look around, trying to get her bearings, but there was nothing obvious that she could see to use to her advantage.

"I recognise you from somewhere," the Imperial said. When she looked back, he was already standing with his hand reaching towards the sword on his hip. She couldn't think how he would recognise her beneath a cloak and her shrouded armour. "Tell me why you are here, quickly." He looked older than when she had seen him last, with more lines set into his tanned features than there had been as he dragged her to the Imperial City Prison, despite it having been mere months since last they met.

Idari stared at him. She knew that she didn't have long to kill him and make her getaway before his bodyguard regained the ability to move, but she still wanted to savour this moment. When she had first escaped from the Imperial Prison, she had briefly considered going to the barracks and attempting to assassinate the man who had put her in there. But she was without proper weapons or armour, and she was distracted by the significant jewellery in her pocket and the weight of the events that she had witnessed and she had decided not to act on her impulses. If anything, she was glad that she was allowed the chance to get her revenge now that she was properly prepared for it. She had made the correct decision to wait.

"You really should recognise me, pig." She drew the katana from the sheath on her back and lunged at him, but he seemed to have predicted what she was about to do and countered her blow lazily with his longsword, shoving what had been a heavy table over with ease to clear the centre of the room.

"Another one?" he sneered, laughing at her. He swung at her as she spun away. "I had thought that you Brotherhood types would learn from your mistakes eventually. You'll meet the same fate as the others, you know."

Her speed and agility were her only advantages, but she was convinced that his age would betray him eventually. "You assume that I am anything like the others. It will be your final mistake." She pressed down on him with her blade but failed to find an opening that she could exploit, her attacks glancing off his armour or stopped dead by his longsword.

"If you are trying to goad me into making an error, you forget that I was fully trained with a sword before you were trained with a fork." Perhaps he had assumed she was a child due to her small stature, but with forty years of service in the Legion under his belt, he was absolutely correct. “I see you use an Akaviri katana, but it is obvious to me that whatever training you have was with a shorter blade. You should have stuck to what you know, assassin.”

Idari felt herself losing her patience, falling into her own trap as he goaded her. Anger bubbled inside her as she tried to hit him harder, dancing around him in search of a gap in the plates of his gilded armour, but his stance was rooted and solid and he managed to match her every attack to a perfect defence.

"See, you assassins are all the same. All sneak and no swing." He turned on her suddenly, his stance shifting to support an offensive assault. Idari was having a difficult time dodging Phillida's powerful blows as they rained down on her, and she was stuck only using her sword defensively as she struggled to stave off his relentless attacks. He was pushing her backwards, and she fought hard to avoid giving up her ground in such a small room. Once her back was against the wall, it would be over.

She growled as she swung her katana at his neck, raising her open hand to cast a fireball into his face and burn that stupid expression away. Phillida did not fall victim to her distraction techniques. He grabbed the wrist of her sword hand, stopping the blow dead, and hit her hard on the nose with the hilt of his blade. Her vision went dark for a moment as she heard and felt the sickening crunch of breaking bones. Blood flowed down her face into her mouth as the spell she had been muttering died on her lips.

The Imperial ripped her hoods back and she spat in his face, splattering him with her blood. "Ah yes, the escaped prisoner. I should have known that you couldn’t leave well enough alone. The Emperor would never have pardoned you if he knew what you did to land yourself in that cell." He ripped the katana from her hand and dropped it at his feet. "I must say, I'm impressed. You lasted slightly longer than the others who came to kill me. It doesn’t surprise me, though. I saw you in action the day we arrested you. So many good men killed and maimed by your blade. The hangman’s noose is too good for you, but I will happily watch you swing on it.”

Idari's free hand rummaged through her pockets, stretching helplessly towards the hidden one that she had sewn into her cloak. She couldn't move, couldn’t reach. With his hand locked around her wrist, her feet were barely touching the floor and she knew that if she even thought about casting a spell again, he would run her through. He shook her, and she felt the joints in her arm crack in painful protest.

"You will suffer for your crimes," Adamus Phillida growled at her. "I will make an example of you so that all of your pathetic Brotherhood cohorts will see and know not to meddle with the Legion."

"Why stop there?" Idari spat again. "Why not raze the Dark Brotherhood to the ground?" Her fingers fumbled against the fastening of her pocket, trying to open it subtly.

Phillida chuckled. "And here I thought I would have to torture the location of your base out of you. Pathetic. I can hardly say I'm surprised. I have yet to meet an assassin who wouldn't willingly sell their mother for a sweetroll. Caring is impossible for your sort, isn’t it?" He dragged her towards the door of the Station as she found what she was looking for between the folds of her cloak.

He reached for the door handle to take her away. Without thinking, she braced her feet against the wall to give herself some leverage, twisting her body and striking him hard in the throat with the Rose of Sithis. Her arm twisted painfully and she was sure she felt another bone crunch in protest, but he dropped her to the floor as he staggered backwards in surprise.

Phillida sat down abruptly in his chair, arrow still jutting out of his neck. Idari didn't know why he was still breathing. Lachance had promised her that he would die instantly if she used the Rose of Sithis. The Dunmer cradled her damaged arm across her chest and tried to ignore the throbbing pain of her broken nose as she spat a gob of her blood onto the ground. She didn't think her arm was damaged too seriously, but she drank a healing potion to deal with the blood pouring down her face. If Phillida saw, at least he wasn't going to live to tell anybody about it.

She picked up her katana from where it lay abandoned on the floor, stretching her arm as it healed. "You should never have put me in prison," she hissed. In many ways, Idari blamed Phillida for her being dragged into all of Cyrodiil's problems. He was the one who had chosen where to place her in the prison. "And you never should have left me in that cell. Sithis called for your blood, but I am here to kill you for myself. You deserved worse." She ran her fingers through the blood on her face and smeared it onto his, instincts crying out to plunge a dagger into his face.

Adamus Phillida was struggling for breath as he pulled the arrow from his throat and tried to bat her hand away with no success. The wound didn't bleed, but instead oozed a sickening black ichor. He tried to talk, but his words died on his lips. His arms went limp and fell to his sides, and Idari could see that the lights in his eyes were beginning to fade.

His signet ring was on the smallest finger of his right hand. The Dunmer thought of merely taking the finger as Lucien had requested, but that didn't seem like it was suffering enough for a man such as Phillida. She gripped his arm and put the hand on the table beside him as he glared at her, unable to act. With a swish of her katana, she took the whole hand off at the wrist. Phillida grunted with pain between wheezes. The wound didn't bleed, but the exposed flesh was turning black and the necrotic tendrils were spreading up his arm.

Idari wrapped the hand in a sack after dumping its contents onto the floor, and then she tucked the sack into her cloak, tying it neatly onto her belt. Phillida's breathing was ragged, and she knew that he wouldn't be alive much longer. She stooped until her face was level with his. "You never should have thrown me into the prison," she repeated. "Enjoy the Void, you Imperial pig."

She left the Coast Guard Station when he was still breathing. There was no point staying until he was dead. He couldn't have recovered from this, even with help from the best healer in the land.

Idari raised her hoods to cover her face and slipped back outside. She heard Phillida's bodyguard growling at her, nearly able to move again. She paralysed him again, so that her murder would go undetected for longer, and knelt down beside him.

"You might have prevented this," she told him. "If I were you, I would follow him into the Void as soon as you can. That man had survived three assassination attempts due to intervention by those around him, until the person who was meant to be protecting him was you. I don't know how I would be able to live with myself." She laughed to herself. She didn't care whether the bodyguard killed himself or not. It didn't make any difference to her.

She didn't linger in Leyawiin any longer than it took her to mount Shadowmere and ride away.


End file.
